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Babtb <£>. JEtotonep, general Cbitor 

WEEK-DAY SCHOOL SERIES GEORGE HERBERT BETTS. Editor 



HEBREW LIFE AND 
TIMES 



BY 
HAROLD B. HUNTING 




THE ABINGDON PRESS 

NEW YORK CINCINNATI 



*# 



Copyright, 1921, by 
HAROLD B. HUNTING 

All Rights Reserved 



,-EB 181922 



Printed in the United States of America 



j ry,A653859 

-^0 / 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Foreword 7 

I. Shepherds on the Border of the 

Desert 9 

II. Home Life in the Tents 15 

III. Desert Pilgrims 22 

IV. A Struggle Against Tyranny 28 

V. A Great Deliverance 34 

VI. From the Desert into Canaan 39 

VII. Learning to be Farmers 44 

VIII. Village Life in Canaan 49 

IX. Keeping House Instead of Camping 

Out 55 

X. Moral Victories in Canaan 60 

XI. Lessons in Cooperation 66 

XII. Experiments in Government 70 

XIII. The Nation Under David and Solo- 

mon 76 

XIV. The Wars of Kings and the People's 

Sorrows 82 

XV. A New Kind of Religion 88 

XVI. A New Kind of Worship 94 

XVII. Jehovah Not a God of Anger 99 

XVIII. One Just God Over All Peoples 103 

XIX. A Revised Law of Moses 108 

XX. A Prophet Who Would Not Com- 
promise 114 



4 CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAOB 

XXI. Keeping the Faith in a Strange Land. 120 

XXII. Undying Hopes of the Jews 127 

XXIII. The Good Days of Nehemiah 134 

XXIV. Hymn and Prayer Books for the New 

Worship 140 

XXV. A Narrow Kind of Patriotism 146 

XXVI. A Broad-Minded and Noble Patriotism. 151 
XXVII. Outdoor Teachers Among the Jews. . 155 

XXVIII. Book Learning Among the Jews 161 

XXIX. New Oppressors and New Wars for 

Freedom 167 

XXX. The Discontent of the Jews Under 

Roman Rule 172 

XXXI. Jewish Hopes Made Greater by Jesus. 176 

XXXII. A Thousand Years of a Nation's Quest. 182 

Review and Test Questions 185 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAGE 

A Daric, or Piece of Money Coined by Darius, 

One of the Earliest Specimens of Coined Money. 10 

Ancient Hebrew Weights for Balances 10 

Hebrew Dry and Liquid Measures 10 

Bronze Needles and Pins from Ruins of Ancient 

Canaanite City 16 

Canaanite Nursery Bottles (Clay) 16 

Canaanite Silver Ladle 16 

Canaanite Forks 16 

Egyptian Plowing 44 

Egyptians Threshing and Winnowing 44 

Egyptian or Hebrew Threshing Floor 44 

An Egyptian Reaping 48 

Canaanite Hoes 48 

Canaanite Sickle 48 

Canaanite or Hebrew Plowshares 48 

Modern Arab Woman Spinning 52 

Ancient Hebrew Door Key 52 

Hebrew Needles of Bone 52 

Smaller Key 52 

Canaanite Chisel (Bronze) 76 

Canaanite File 76 

Very Ancient Canaanite Flint, for Making 

Stone Knives 76 

Bronze Hammerhead 76 

5 



6 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

FACING PAGE 

Bone Awl Handle 76 

A Fish-Hook 76 

Canaanite Whetstones 76 

Canaanite or Hebrew Nails 76 

Remains of Walls of the Canaanite City, Megiddo 134 

Part of City Wall and Gate, Samaria 134 

Canaanite Pipe or Fife 144 

An Egyptian Harp 144 

An Assyrian Upright Harp 144 

An Assyrian Horizontal Harp 144 

A Babylonian Harp 144 

Jewish Harps on Coins of Bar Cochba, 132-135 

A. D 144 

Assyrian Dulcimer 144 



FOREWORD 

Most histories have been histories of kings and em- 
perors. The daily life of the common people — their 
joys and sorrows, their hopes, achievements, and ideals 
— has been buried in oblivion. The historical narratives 
of the Bible are, indeed, to a great extent an exception 
to this rule. They tell us much about the everyday life 
of peasants and slaves. The Bible's chief heroes were 
not kings nor nobles. Its supreme Hero was a peasant 
workingman. But we have not always studied the Bible 
from this point of view. In this course we shall try to 
reconstruct for ourselves the story of the Hebrew people 
as an account of Hebrew shepherds, farmers, and such 
like : what oppressions they endured ; how they were de- 
livered; and above all what ideals of righteousness and 
truth and mercy they cherished, and how they came to 
think and feel about God. It makes little difference to 
us what particular idler at any particular time sat in the 
palace at Jerusalem sending forth tax-collectors to raise 
funds for his luxuries. It is of very great interest and 
concern to us if there were daughters like Ruth in the 
barley fields of Bethlehem, if shepherds tended their 
flocks in that same country who were so fine in heart 
and simple in faith that to them or their children visions 
of angels might appear telling of a Saviour of the world. 
On such as these, in this study, let us as far as possible 
fix our attention. 



CHAPTER I 

SHEPHERDS ON THE BORDER OF THE 
DESERT 

Ancient Arabia is the home of that branch of the 
white race known as the Semitic. Here on the fertile 
fringes of well-watered land surrounding the great cen- 
tral desert lived the Phoenicians, the Assyrians, the 
Babylonians, and the Canaanites who, before the He- 
brews, inhabited Palestine. So little intermixing of 
races has there been that the Arabs of to-day, like those 
of the time of Abraham, are Semites. 

The Hebrew people are an offshoot of this same 
Semitic group. They began their career as a tribe of 
shepherds on the border of the north Arabian desert. 
The Arab shepherds of to-day, still living in tents and 
wandering to and fro on the fringes of the settled terri- 
tory of Palestine, or to the south and west of Bagdad, 
represent almost perfectly what the wandering Hebrew 
shepherds used to be. 

The Arabs of to-day are armed with rifles, whereas 
Abraham's warriors cut down their enemies with bronze 
swords. Otherwise, in customs, superstitions, and even 
to some extent in language, the modern desert Arabs 
may stand for the ancient Hebrews in their earliest 
period. They were nomads with no settled homes. 
Every rainy season they led out their flocks into the 
valleys where the fresh green of the new grass was crowd- 
ing back the desert brown. All through the spring and 
early summer they went from spring to spring, and from 
pasture to pasture seeking the greenest and tenderest 

9 



io HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

grass. Then as the dry season came on and the barren 
waste came creeping back they also worked their way 
back toward the more settled farm lands, until autumn 
found them selling their wool to the nearby farmers and 
townspeople in exchange for wheat and barley and some 
of the other necessaries of life. 

The Shepherd's Daily Life 

Sheep-raising might seem at times a peaceful and 
even a somewhat monotonous business. The flocks 
found their own food, grazing in the pastures. Morning 
and night they had to be watered, the water being drawn 
from the well and poured into watering troughs. Once 
or twice a day also the ewes and shegoats had to be 
milked. When these chores were done it was only 
necessary to stand guard over the flock and protect 
them from robbers or wild animals. This, however, had 
to be done by night as well as by day. On these wide 
pastures there were no sheepfolds into which the animals 
could be securely herded as on the settled farms. They 
slept on the ground, under the open sky, and the shep- 
herds, like those in Bethlehem, in the story of Jesus' 
birth, had to keep "watch over their flocks by night." 
So long as no enemies appeared there was in such an 
occupation plenty of time in which to think and dream 
of God and man and love and duty. Very often, how- 
ever, the dreamer's reveries were interrupted, and at 
such times there was no lack of excitement. 

Wild beasts. — There were more beasts of prey in 
Arabia in those days than there are to-day. In addi- 
tion to wolves and bears, there were many lions, which 
are not now found anywhere in the world except in 
Africa. So the sheepmen had to go well armed, with 
clubs, swords, and spears. We would want a high-pow- 




A UAkIC, OR PIECE 
OF MONEY COINED 
BY DARIUS, ONE 
OF THE EARLIEST 
SPECIMENS OF 
COINED MONEY 




ANCIENT HEBREW WEIGHTS 
FOR BALANCES 








HEBREW DRY AND LIQUID MEASURES 
Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration Fund. 



SHEPHERDS ON THE DESERT n 

ered rifle if we were in danger of facing a lion. The 
Hebrews defended their flocks against these powerful 
and vicious beasts with only the simplest weapons. 
Such fights were anything but monotonous. 

Trips to Town 

Among the most interesting events in the lives of 
the shepherds were their trips to town, when they sold 
some of their wool and bought grain, and linen cloth, 
and trinkets for the babies, and the things they could 
not find nor make on the grassy plains. The raw wool 
was packed in bags and slung over the backs of donkeys. 
On other donkeys rode two or more of the men of the 
tribe. Sometimes, perhaps, a small boy was taken 
along on the donkey's back behind his father to see the 
sights. And for him the sights must have been rather 
wonderful — the great thick walls of the town, the mass- 
ive gates, the houses, row on row, and the people, more 
of them in one street than in the whole tribe to which 
he belonged! 

The market. — They took their wool, of course, to the 
open square where all the merchants sold their goods. 
Soon buyers appeared who wanted wool. It was a long 
process then, as now, to strike a bargain in an Oriental 
town. It is very impolite to seem to be in a hurry. 
You must each ask after one another's health, and the 
health of your respective fathers, and all your ancestors. 
By and by, you cautiously come around to the subject 
of wool. How much do you want for your wool? At 
first you don't name a price. You aren't even sure that 
you want to sell it. Finally you mention a sum about 
five times as large as you expect to get. The buyer in 
turn offers to pay about a fifth of what it is worth. After 
a time you come down a bit on your price. The buyer 



i2 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

comes up a bit on his. After an hour or two, or perhaps 
a half a day, you compromise and the wool is sold. 

Weighing out the silver or gold. — In those early 
days there was no coined money. Silver and gold were 
used as money, only they had to be weighed every time 
a trade was put through; just as though we were to sell 
so many pounds of flour for so many ounces of silver. 
The weights used were very crude; usually they were 
merely rough stones from the field with the weight mark 
scratched on them. The scale generally used was as 
follows: 

60 shekels = 1 mana. 

60 manas = 1 talent. 

The shekel was equal to about an ounce, in our modern 
avoirdupois system. There was no accurate standard 
weight anywhere. Honest dealers tried to have weights 
which corresponded to custom. But it was easy to cheat 
by having two sets of weights, one for buying and one for 
selling. So when our shepherds came to town, they had 
to watch the merchant who bought from them lest he 
put too heavy a talent weight in the balance with their 
wool, and too light a shekel-weight in the smaller bal- 
ance with the silver. 

The Hard Side of Shepherd Life 
The most precious and uncertain thing in the shep- 
herd's life was water. If in the rainy season the rains 
were heavy, and the wells and brooks did not dry up too 
soon in the summer, they had plenty of goat's milk for 
food, and could bring plenty of wool to market in the 
fall. But if the rains were scant their flocks perished, 
and actual famine and death stared them in the face. 
In the dry years many were the tribes that were almost 



SHEPHERDS ON THE DESERT 13 

totally wiped out by famine and the diseases that sweep 
away hungry men. The next year, on the site of their 
last camp, strangers would find the bones of men and 
women and little children, whitening by the side of the 
trail. No wonder they looked upon wells and springs as 
sacred. Surely, they thought, a god must be the giver 
of those life-giving waters that bubble up so myste- 
riously from the crevices in the rock. 

War with other tribes. — In addition to their con- 
stant struggle to make a living from a somewhat barren 
land, these shepherds were almost constantly in danger 
from human enemies. A small, weak tribe, grazing its 
flocks around a good well, was always in danger lest a 
stronger tribe swoop down upon them to kill and plun- 
der. There were many robber clans who did little else 
besides preying on their neighbors and passing caravans 
of traders. Nowhere was there any security. The desert 
and its borders was a world of bitter hatreds and long- 
standing feuds. Certain rival tribes fought each other 
at every opportunity for centuries with a warfare that 
hesitated at no cruelty or treachery. 

Desert Religion 

Such a life of eager longings, fierce passions, and dark 
despair is a fertile soil for religion. And these early 
Hebrew shepherds were intensely religious. It is true 
that in the earliest days the fierceness and cruelty of 
their wars were reflected in the character of the gods in 
whom they believed. They thought of them as doing 
many cruel and selfish things. Yet a people who be- 
lieve very deeply and seriously in their religion, even in 
an imperfect religion, are sure to be a force in the world. 
Hence it is not surprising that three of the world's 
greatest religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Moham- 



i 4 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

medanism, arose at different times among the wondering 
shepherds of Arabia. 

Study Topics 

It would be well to keep a notebook in which to write 
the result of your study. 

1. Look up in any Bible dictionary, under "Weights 
and Measures," the approximate size of an "ephah," 
which was the common Hebrew unit of dry measure, and 
"hin," which was their common unit for measuring 
liquids. 

2. From the facts given in this chapter, calculate in 
pounds avoirdupois, the approximate weight of a talent. 

3. To what extent does the Old Testament reflect the 
experiences of shepherd life? Look up "shepherd" in 
any concordance. 

4. What are some valuable lessons which great spirit- 
ual teachers among the Hebrews learned from their 
shepherd life? Read Psalm 23. 



CHAPTER II 
HOME LIFE IN THE TENTS 

Most persons, no matter what their race or country, 
spend a large proportion of their time at home. The 
home is the center of many interests and activities, and 
it reflects quite accurately the state of civilization of a 
people. In this chapter let us take a look into the 
homes of the shepherd Hebrews. We shall visit one of 
their encampments; perhaps we shall be reminded of a 
camp of the gypsies. 

A Cluster of Black Tents 

Here on a gentle hillside sloping up from a tiny brook, 
is a cluster of ten or a dozen black tents. Further down 
the valley sheep are grazing. Two or three mongrel dogs 
rush out to bark at us as we approach, until a harsh 
voice calls them back. A dark man with bare brown 
arms comes out to meet us, wearing a coarse woolen 
cloak with short sleeves. Half-naked children peer out 
from the tent flaps. 

The inside of the tents. — Our friend is eager to show 
us hospitality and invites us to enter his tent. It is a 
low, squatting affair, and we have to stoop low to enter 
the opening in the front. We note that the tent-cloth 
is a woolen fabric not like our canvas of to-day. It 
is stretched across a center-pole, with supports on the 
front and back, while the edges are pinned to the ground 
much as our tents are. There are curtains within the 
tent partitioning off one part for the men, and another 
15 



16 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

for the women and children. There are mats on the 
ground to sit on and to sleep on at night. 

Preparing Food 

Like the housewives of all ages, the Hebrew women 
have food to prepare, and meals to get. Their one great 
food is milk, not cows' milk, but the milk of goats. A 
modern traveler tells of meeting an Arab who in a time 
of scarcity had lived on milk alone for more than a 
year. 

A meager diet. — Besides fresh milk there were then 
as now a number of things which were made from milk. 
The Hebrews on the desert took some milk and cream 
and poured it into a bag made of skin, and hung it by 
a stout cord from a pole. One of the women, or a boy, 
pounded this bag until the butter came out. This was 
their way of churning. Cheese also was a favorite 
article of diet. The milk was curdled by means of the 
sour or bitter juices of certain plants, and the curds were 
then salted and dried in the sun. Curdled milk even 
more than sweet milk was also used as a drink. It 
probably tasted like the kumyss, or zoolak, which we 
can buy in our drug stores or soda fountains. 

We would get very tired of milk and milk products if 
we had nothing else to eat all the year round ; and so did 
these shepherds. They were eager to get hold of wheat 
and barley, whenever they could buy them. The women 
took the wheat and pounded it with a wooden mallet 
or a stone in a hollow in some larger stone. The coarse 
meal which they made in this way they mixed with 
salt and water and baked on hot stones before the 
camphre. Once in a great while it was possible, in this 
shepherd life, to have a feast with mutton or kid or 
lamb. But milk and wool were so valuable that the 




BRONZE NEEDLES AND PINS FROM RUINS OF ANCIENT 
CANAANITE CITY 




CANAANITE 
SILVER LADLE 



CANAANITE FORKS 

Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration Fund. 



HOME LIFE IN THE TENTS 17 

shepherds were very cautious about killing their flocks. 
It was, you see, a very simple and healthful diet on 
which these tent-people lived. But one meal was pretty 
much like another. Dinner was like breakfast, and to- 
morrow's meals would be just like to-day's. It is not 
strange that they often longed for a change, and looked 
with envy at the crops of the farmers in the settled 
lands beyond the desert. 

Clothing 

Another occupation at which the women worked all 
day long was the making of clothing for their families. 
Most of their garments were made of the wool from their 
own flocks. First the wool had to be spun into yarn. 
They did not even have spinning wheels in those days, 
so a spinner took a handful of wool on the end of 
a stick called a distaff, which she held in her left hand. 
With her right hand she hooked into the wool a spindle. 
This was a round, pointed piece of wood about ten 
inches long with a hook at the pointed end, and with a 
small piece of stone fastened to the other to give mo- 
mentum in the spinning. With deft fingers the spinner 
kept this spindle whirling and at the same time kept 
working the wool down into the thread of yarn which 
she was making. As the thread lengthened she wound 
it around the spindle, until the wool on the distaff was 
all gone and she had a great ball of yarn. 

Weaving. — The ancient Egyptians and Babylonians 
were experts in the art of weaving. They had large 
looms similar to ours, and wove on them beautiful 
fabrics of linen and wool. The shepherds on the plains 
no doubt bought these fabrics when they could afford 
them. But they could not carry these heavy looms 
around with them from one camp to another, and much 



18 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

of the time their own women had to weave whatever 
cloth they had. The primitive loom they used was 
made by driving two sticks into the ground, and stretch- 
ing a row of threads between them, and then tediously 
weaving the cross threads in and out, a thread at a 
time, until a yard or so of cloth was finished. Slow 
work this was, and many a long day passed before 
enough cloth could be woven to make a coat for a man 
or even a boy. 

They managed, however, to get along without nearly 
so much clothing as we think necessary. The little 
children, through warm days of summer, played around 
the tents almost naked. And the grown people dressed 
very simply. There were only two garments for either 
men or women. They wore a long shirt reaching to 
the knees. This was made by doubling over a strip of 
cloth, sewing the sides, and cutting out holes for arms 
and neck. The outer garment was a sort of coat, open 
in front, and gathered about the waist with leather belt. 
This outer garment was often thrown aside when the 
wearer was working. It was worn in cold weather, 
however, and was often the poor man's only blanket at 
night. Women's garments were probably a little longer 
than those of men, but in other respects the same. As 
for the feet, they mostly went barefoot. But on long 
journeys over rough ground they wore sandals of wood 
or roughly shaped shoes of sheepskin. On the head for 
a protection against sun and wind they, like the modern 
Arab, probably wore a sort of large scarf gathered 
around the neck. 

Making the garments. — All these garments were 
cut and sewed by the women. They had no sewing 
machines to work with, not even fine steel needles like 
ours. They used large, coarse needles made of bronze 



HOME LIFE IN THE TENTS 19 

or, very often, of splinters of bone sharpened at one 
end, with a hole drilled through the other. With such 
rough tools, and all this work to be done, we can be 
sure that the wives and daughters of Hebrew shepherds 
did not lack for something to do. 

Family Life 

Among ancient Hebrews family life, from the very be- 
ginning, was often sweet, kindly, and beautiful. This 
is shown by the many stories in the early books of the 
Old Testament which reflect disapproval of unbrotherly 
conduct, or, which hold up kindness and loyalty in 
family life as a beautiful and praiseworthy thing. 
Take the story of Joseph. It begins indeed with an 
unpleasant picture of an unhappy and unloving family 
of shepherd brothers. We read of a father's partiality 
toward the petted favorite, of a spoiled and conceited 
boy, of the bitter jealousy of the other brothers, and 
finally of a crime in which they showed no mercy when 
they sold their hated rival to a caravan of traders to 
be taken away, it might be, forever. But the story goes 
on to tell how that same lad, years later, grown to man- 
hood and risen to a position of extraordinary power and 
influence in the great kingdom of Egypt, not only saved 
from death by starvation his family, including those 
same brothers who had wronged him, but even effected 
a complete reconciliation with them and nobly forgave 
them. 

Now, the most notable facts in connection with this 
story are those "between the lines." It is not merely 
that such and such events are said to have happened, 
but that for generations, perhaps centuries, Hebrew 
fathers and mothers kept the story of these events alive, 
telling it over and over again to their children. On 



2o HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

numberless days, no doubt, in this shepherd life there 
were bickering and angry words among the children 
by the spring or at meal time, or in their games. The 
older brothers were tyrannical toward the younger, or 
one or another cherished black and unforgiving looks to- 
ward a brother or sister who he thought had done 
him a wrong. And many a time after such a day the 
old father would gather all the family together in the 
evening around the camp fire in front of the tent and 
would begin to tell the story of Joseph. And as the 
tale went on, with its thrilling episodes, and its touches 
of pathos leading up at last to the whole-souled gen- 
erosity and the sweet human tenderness of Joseph, many 
a little heart softened, and in the darkness many a lit- 
tle brown hand sought a brother's hand in loving 
reconciliation. 

The tribe as a larger family. — To some extent the 
desert shepherds of all ages have carried this family 
spirit into the relations between members of the tribe 
as a whole. Since they had to stand together for pro- 
tection, quarrels between tribesmen were discouraged. 
Moreover, they were not separated into classes by differ- 
ence of wealth. There were some who had larger flocks 
than others, but for the most part all members of the 
tribe were equal. Even from among the slaves who 
were captured now and then in war there were some who 
rose to positions of honor. There were no kings nor 
princes; the chief of the tribe held his position by virtue 
of his long experience and practical wisdom. The dis- 
tinction between close blood relationship and the broth- 
erhood of membership in the same tribe was not sharply 
drawn; all were brothers. This is true to-day of all these 
desert tribes. 

Only a tribe, however, with an unusual capacity for 



HOME LIFE IN THE TENTS 21 

brotherly affection and for making social life sweet and 
harmonious could have produced a Joseph or the story 
of Joseph, or would have preserved that story in oral 
form through the centuries until it could be written 
down. It is worth while looking into the later history 
of such a tribe, and seeing what happened to them and 
how they thought and acted, and what they contributed 
to the life of the world. 

Study Topics 

1. Get some cotton at a drug store, and see if you 
can spin some cotton thread, with a homemade spindle, 
such as is described in this chapter. 

2. Who had the harder work among the Hebrew 
shepherds, the women or the men? 

3. Find other stories in Genesis besides the story of 
Joseph which show how the Hebrews felt in regard to 
the relations between brothers. 

4. Compare the home life in America with the home 
life of the Hebrews. Are American brothers and sisters 
growing more quarrelsome or more kindly and loving 
toward one another? 

5. In what way do the oral traditions of a people 
throw light on the ideals and relationships they most 
valued? 

6. Compare the dietary available to Americans with 
that of the ancient Hebrews. 



CHAPTER III 
DESERT PILGRIMS 

According to one of the Hebrew traditions recorded 
in the book of Genesis, the earliest home of their an- 
cestors was Ur of the Chaldees. This was one of the 
leading cities of ancient Babylonia. It was situated 
southwest of the Euphrates River, near the plains which 
were the nation's chief grazing grounds. And it is pos- 
sible that of the shepherds who brought their sheep to 
market in Ur some were, indeed, among the ancestors 
of the Hebrews. 

Babylonian Civilization 

Babylonia is one of the two lands (Egypt being the 
other) where human civilization began. This rich allu- 
vial plain, lying between the lower Tigris and the lower 
Euphrates Rivers, became the home of a gifted race 
which at least in its later history through intermarriage 
was in part Semitic and thus related to the Hebrews. 
Several thousand years before Christ the people of this 
land began to till the soil, to control the floods in the 
rivers by means of irrigating canals, to make bricks 
out of the abundant clay and with them to build houses 
and cities. They also invented a system of writing upon 
clay tablets. These were baked in the sun after the 
letters were inscribed. Commercial records and written 
laws and histories were thus made possible and in time 
a varied literature was created. Whole libraries of 
these baked clay tablets have been unearthed and de- 
ciphered by modern investigators. 

Evidences of ancient culture.— By B.C. 4000 there 



DESERT PILGRIMS 23 

flourished on the plains of Babylonia a splendid civili- 
zation in many ways similar to ours to-day. The peo- 
ple raised enormous crops of grain and exported it by 
ship and caravan to distant lands. They had developed 
to a high point the arts of the weaver, the dyer; the 
potter, the metal worker, and the carpenter. They had 
devised a system of geometry for the measuring of 
their wheat fields and city streets. Through astronomy 
they had worked out the calendar of days, weeks, 
months, and years which with modifications we still use. 
They had erected magnificent temples to their gods. 
From translations of the inscriptions on their clay tab- 
lets we can gain a clear knowledge of their life and 
customs. Here, for example, is a translation of part of 
a letter from a son to a father asking for more money: 
"My father, you said, 'When I shall go to Dur-Ammi- 
Zaduga, I will send you a sheep and five minas of 
silver.' But you have not sent. Let my father send 
and let not my heart be vexed. ... To the gods 
Shamash and Marduk I pray for my father." If we 
forget the outlandish-sounding names, how natural this 
seems! How like our boys was this boy who wrote 
the queer-looking characters on this bit of clay which 
we may hold in our hand! 

The Faults of the Babylonian Civilization 

With all their gifts and achievements there were 
certain great evils in Babylonian life. For one thing 
they were inclined to be greedy and covetous. They 
lived on a soil almost incredibly rich, and they were con- 
stantly increasing their wealth by trade. Babylonian 
merchants or their agents were to be found in almost 
every city and town of western Asia and perhaps even 
as far east as China. Of the vast mass of their written 



24 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

records which have been collected in our museums, the 
majority are business documents and records of con- 
tracts. Many of them tell the story of hard bargains. 
Professor Maspero declares that these records "reveal 
to us a people greedy of gain, exacting, and almost ex- 
clusively absorbed by material concerns." 

Slavery. — Moreover, the wealth of the nation was not 
fairly distributed but was more and more in the hands 
of the favored few, the great nobles, and their friends. 
The fields were not tilled by independent farmers. 
There were, instead, a few great estates which were 
rented out to tenants. The actual work, both on the 
fields and in the towns, was more and more performed 
by slaves. Some of these were captives who had been 
taken in war. Others were native Babylonians who had 
been sold into slavery for debt. So it had come about 
that Babylonian society had set like plaster into a hard 
mold with the king and the wealthy nobles on top and 
the poor peasants and slaves below. This state of 
things was fastened all the more firmly on the people 
by strong kings such as Hammurabi, who lived about 
B.C. 2000 and who unified the country under a powerful 
central government with his own city, Babylon, as the 
capital. 

A Shepherd with Ideals 

About the time of Hammurabi's reign, if we follow 
the account related in the book of Genesis, there lived 
among the nomads on the plains west of the city of Ur 
a man named Abraham. If Hammurabi ever heard of 
him, which is improbable, he looked down upon him as 
of no account. Yet Abraham wielded a greater influ- 
ence for the future welfare of humanity than all the 
princes of Babylon. For, discontented with Babylonian 



DESERT PILGRIMS 25 

life, he was the earliest pioneer in a movement toward a 
civilization of a different and better type. And the 
sons of Hammurabi have yet to reckon with Abraham 
and his ambitions. 

Discontent among the shepherds. — Many of Abra- 
ham's people, no doubt, were discontented in Baby- 
lonia. A shepherd's life is monotonous and hard. When 
they went to market they saw comforts and luxuries on 
every hand. Yet the money they received from the 
wool merchants of Ur gave no promise of larger oppor- 
tunities in life for any shepherd boy. So, at length when 
Abraham said to them, "Come, let us leave this country," 
they were ready to answer, "Lead on, and we will fol- 
low!" So it came to pass that Abraham's clan set out 
northwest, toward Haran, in what is now called Meso- 
potamia, and finally after some years of migration found 
themselves camping on the hillsides of Canaan, southeast 
of the Mediterranean Sea. 

Ideals represented in Abraham. — But it is not as 
a leader of fortune hunters that Abraham is pictured in 
the Bible. No doubt he and his clansmen hoped to 
better their condition. But Abraham was a dreamer 
and a man of deep religious faith. He believed that he 
was being guided by his God. And he believed that 
in accordance with God's plan his descendants in the 
land to which they had come would become a great na- 
tion. Best of all, it seems probable that he dreamed 
of a nation different from Babylonia. Certainly he is 
described as a different kind of a man from the typical 
Babylonian. In some respects, to be sure, judging by 
our Christian standards, he had serious shortcomings. 
He did not scruple to deceive a foreigner, nor to treat 
harshly a slave. His ideas as to the character of God 
were far below those revealed by Christ. Yet he had 



26 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

the Hebrew gift for home and family life. He was a 
good father to his son. And he put a higher value on 
personal friendship and kindly family relations than on 
property interests. When his herdsmen quarreled with 
those of his nephew, Lot, he said to the latter with 
dignified generosity and common sense, "Let there be no 
strife, I pray thee, between me and thee ... for we are 
brethren. Is not the whole land before thee? Separate 
thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left 
hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou take the 
right hand, then I will go to the left." Just what Abra- 
ham looked forward to, we, of course, do not know. 
Probably his ideas were vague. Yet it seems that such 
men as he must have dreamed of a nation great in faith 
as well as in material wealth; a nation in which money 
would not be considered more important than justice 
and kindness; in which home life might be sweet and 
loving, free from the fear of want or the blighting in- 
fluence of greed; and in which the door of opportunity 
would always be kept open even for the humblest. 

At any rate, some centuries after the time when 
Abraham is supposed to have lived, we find a group of 
shepherd tribes living in and around Canaan, who be- 
lieved themselves to be descended from the twelve sons 
of Jacob, Abraham's grandson, and among whom there 
was the tradition of a divinely guided pilgrimage from 
Babylonia to Canaan under Abraham's leadership just 
as we have described. It is a great thing to have mem- 
ories of noble parents and traditions of heroic ancestors. 
These the Hebrews had from the very beginning. 

Study Topics 

i. Look up in any good Bible dictionary, the arti- 
cles on Babylonia and Hammurabi. 



DESERT PILGRIMS 27 

2. Read Genesis 12, 15, and 24 and form your own 
opinion of Abraham as a husband and father. 

3. What was Abraham's most valuable contribution 
to history? 

4. From any map of western Asia, draw a sketch 
map showing the Nile, Euphrates, and Tigris Rivers, 
the Mediterranean Sea, and the general direction of 
Abraham's pilgrimage. 

5. Where in the Bible is found the sentence spoken 
by Abraham to Lot, and quoted in this chapter? 



CHAPTER IV 
A STRUGGLE AGAINST TYRANNY 

Although they had escaped for a time from Baby- 
lonian tyranny, the descendants of Abraham in Canaan 
found themselves somewhat within the range of the in- 
fluence of the other great civilized power of that day, 
that is, Egypt. Egyptian officers collected tribute from 
rich Canaanite cities. The roads that led to Egypt 
were thronged with caravans going to and fro. By and 
by, a series of dry seasons drove several of the Hebrew 
tribes down these highways to Egypt in the search of food. 
The story of Joseph tells how they settled there. 1 They 
were hospitably received by the king (or Pharaoh, which 
was the Egyptian word for "king"), and were allowed 
to pasture their flocks on the plains called the land of 
Goshen in the extreme northeast of the country west 
of what we now call the Isthmus of Suez. For some 
decades or more they lived here, following their old oc- 
cupation — sheep-raising. 

Egyptian civilization. — Egypt was in many ways like 
Babylonia. In Egypt too a great civilization had sprung 
up many millenniums before Christ. In some ways it 
was an even greater civilization than that of Babylonia. 
Egyptian sculptors and architects erected stone temples 
whose grandeur has never been surpassed. Many of 
them are still standing and are among the world's treas- 
ures. It would seem that there was somewhat more of 
love of beauty and somewhat less of greed for money 
among the Egyptians than among the Babylonians. 

•See Chapter I. and Genesis 46 and 47. 
28 



A STRUGGLE AGAINST TYRANNY 29 

The Accession of Rameses II 

There came to the throne of Egypt about B. C. 1200 
a man of extraordinary vanity and selfish ambition 
known as Rameses II. He wished to build more temples 
in Egypt than any other king had ever built, so that 
wherever the traveler might turn people would point 
to this or that great building and say Rameses II built 
that. To put up these buildings he enslaved his people, 
compelling them to labor without pay. To raise the 
funds for building materials he made war on his neigh- 
bors, especially the Hittites in western Asia north of Ca- 
naan. Again and again Hebrew children would see the 
dust of marching armies over the roads past their pas- 
tures and men would say, "Rameses is going to war 
again." And by and by, weeks or months later, the 
soldiers would return with tales of bloody battles and 
sometimes laden with spoils. 

Enslavement of the Hebrews. — Now, wars usually 
breed more wars. Rameses having attacked the Hit- 
tites was afraid they would attack him. Egypt was 
indeed very well protected from attack. There was 
only one gateway into the country, and that was by 
way of the narrow Isthmus of Suez. And there were a 
wall and a row of fortresses across the isthmus. But 
who were those shepherd tribes living just west of the 
isthmus inside the gateway? They are Hebrews, Ram- 
eses was told. They are immigrants from Canaan. 
"Look out for them," said Rameses. "If they came from 
Canaan, they may favor the Hittites and help them to 
get past my fortresses into Egypt. Let them be put 
at work so that they will have no time for plots." 

Rameses was planning just then to build two large 
granary cities near the northeastern border to be a base 



3 o HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

of supplies for his armies on their campaigns into Asia. 
One was to be called Pi thorn. 2 

So one day armed men came to the Hebrew tents 
and the order was given to send such and such a num- 
ber of men to work in the brick-molds of Pa-Tum. 
And they had to go. The women and the children had 
to care for the sheep while most of their men trod the 
clay and straw in the brick molds at Pa-Tum and car- 
ried heavy loads of brick on their shoulders to the ma- 
sons on the walls. Of course the sheep suffered for lack 
of care. The children also pined from neglect. Life for 
the Hebrews became a grinding treadmill of hardship and 
weariness and drudgery. 

The Boyhood and Youth of Moses 

During this time of oppression a Hebrew baby boy 
was by chance adopted by one of the princesses in 
Pharaoh's court and brought up by his own mother as 
his nurse. He was given an Egyptian name with the 
common Egyptian ending Mesu or M-ses, as in Ram- 
eses. The boy was given all the educational advan- 
tages that the Egyptian palace could offer. But all the 
time in secret from his mother he was learning the story 
of his own people and their wrongs, and was being 
trained to hate their oppressors. One day after he had 
grown to manhood he went down to the city of Pa- 
Tum to see the work on the new granaries which were 
being built. Here he saw one of his own people being 
flogged by an Egyptian overseer. In a fury he leaped 
to the man's defense and killed the Egyptian. Of 
course Rameses heard of it, and Moses had to flee from 



'Exodus i. i-ii, or Pa-Tum in Egyptian; the other Rameses, after the king 
himself. It was decided to compel the Hebrews to do the work of brickmaking 
for these new cities. 



A STRUGGLE AGAINST TYRANNY 31 

Egypt into the desert. In the desert he found a shep- 
herd clan related to the Hebrews and lived there for 
some years brooding over the hard plight of his people. 

Moses* call and the struggle for freedom. — One 
day in the desert, Moses heard from a passing caravan 
that old Rameses II was dead. Like a flame that burned 
but did not consume the thought came to him: "Now 
is your chance ! The king and his officers will not know 
about you. Go back to Egypt and lead your kinsmen 
out to freedom. This is God's call and God will help 
you." 

So back to Egypt he went. First, he undertook to 
rally his own people, promising the help of their God, 
Jehovah. It was a dangerous undertaking that he pro- 
posed. The kings of Egypt were accustomed to make 
short work of those who resisted their authority. More- 
over, these Hebrews had been slaves for years, and their 
spirits might have been cowed and broken. Yet they 
believed in Moses and his assurances and accepted him 
as their leader. 

Soon thereafter Moses and his brother Aaron went 
boldly to the palace of the Pharaoh and declared to 
him that Jehovah, the God of the Hebrews, had com- 
manded that the Hebrews be allowed to hold a religious 
festival in the desert to offer sacrifices unto him as their 
God. The plan no doubt was that the people should 
escape once they were outside the boundaries of Egypt; 
Moses evidently considered any method justifiable in 
the effort to outwit the oppressor. But the Pharaoh 
answered, "Who is Jehovah that I should hearken to 
his voice to let Israel go?" The request was sharply 
refused. It is surprising that Moses himself was not 
arrested and imprisoned on the spot. Perhaps he still 
had friends in the Egyptian court. Or perhaps the 



32 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

Egyptians had a certain reverence for him as a mes- 
senger from a god, even though they did not grant his 
demands. 

Bricks without straw. — At first it seemed that Moses 
had failed. For instead of the longed-for freedom, the 
toiling Hebrews found that a still heavier burden of 
work was laid upon them. In the manufacture of sun- 
dried brick it is necessary to mix straw with the clay 
in the molds, the fibers giving a tougher quality to the 
product. Previously the straw for this purpose had 
been furnished by the Egyptians. But now the order 
was, "Go yourselves, get straw where you can find it." 
So they had to go and hunt through the surrounding 
fields for old refuse straw, in rotting ricks and compost 
heaps. Yet the same number of bricks was required as 
before, with a whipping in case of failure. 

The granaries in Pa-Tum and Rameses were excavated 
many years ago from beneath the sands of Egypt, and 
their ruined walls may still be seen by tourists. It is 
noticeable that the upper tiers in the walls are made of 
bricks of a very poor quality as compared to those in 
the lower tiers. Evidently, the Hebrews got through 
the work somehow each day, putting very little straw in 
the clay, or sometimes none at all. 

But they wished they had never heard of Moses, and 
they reproached him for "making them hateful in the 
eyes of Pharaoh." In the first round of the fight Moses 
and freedom had lost; Pharaoh and slavery had won. 
But the end was not yet. 

Study Topics 
i. Look up in any good Bible dictionary, the article 
on Egypt; or read the summary of Egyptian history in 
some recent general history. 



A STRUGGLE AGAINST TYRANNY 33 

2. Draw a map of Egypt, locating approximately 
the place where the Hebrews worked. 

3. In what special ways was Moses well trained to 
be an emancipator for his people? 

4. Are there workers to-day who are in any form of 
slavery which may be compared to that of the Hebrews 
in Egypt? 

5. Are there any Pharaohs to-day? Any Moseses? 



CHAPTER V 
A GREAT DELIVERANCE 

Egypt has never been a health resort. The intensely 
hot summers breed germs of disease, and also the in- 
sects which often carry them. Throughout its history 
the country has been ravaged periodically by fearful 
epidemics. A series of these pestilences predicted by 
Moses and declared to be Jehovah's punishment for the 
enslavement of the Israelites, made it possible for him 
to lead his people out of slavery. So severe were the 
plagues that the government was for a time disorgan- 
ized. Taking advantage of their opportunity, the He- 
brews suddenly gathered up their possessions and set 
out toward the desert, driving their sheep and goats 
before them. In spite of the large figures given in some 
passages of Exodus, other statements indicate that they 
were not very numerous, a few thousand at most, and 
they doubtless hoped to slip out past the border for- 
tresses, at night, unnoticed. As they approached the 
border, however, news came that they were being pur- 
sued by a troop of horsemen. This meant, of course, 
that a watch would be made for them at the fortresses 
also. They were caught in a trap, and turned in de- 
spair upon Moses, who could only once more assure 
them that Jehovah was leading them, and would some- 
how open the way. 

The Strong East Wind and its Result 

That night they encamped on the western shore of 
one of the shallow bays or lakes at the head of the 

34 



A GREAT DELIVERANCE 35 

Red Sea. To the east was the water. North of the 
lake the wall and the line of fortresses began. Behind 
them they could already see where their pursuers were 
camping for the night. In the morning — terror, death, 
and return to slavery! 

A path through the sea.— During the night, how- 
ever, someone came in from the shore of the lake with 
the astonishing news that it was going dry. A strong 
east wind was blowing, with an effect often observed by 
modern travelers, namely, that the comparatively shal- 
low waters were being driven back into the deeper part 
of the sea. Instantly the word of command was given. 
With the women and children first and the flocks next, 
they picked their way through the mud and sand and 
rocks on the lake bottom, clear across to the other side. 
The next morning the wind changed, the waters returned, 
and many of their pursuers were drowned. 

The feelings of the Hebrews are expressed in the 
words of the triumph song in which through all later 
centuries they celebrated this deliverance: 

"I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath tri- 
umphed gloriously: 

The horse and his rider hath he thrown 
into the sea. 

Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he 

cast into the sea; 
And his chosen captains are sunk in the 

Red Sea." 

Influence of the Exodus on Hebrew Religion 

It was indeed a notable deliverance, and the Hebrews 
never forgot it. It affected their ideals and their re- 



36 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

ligion. Immediately after escaping from Egypt they set 
out across the desert for Mount Sinai, which was con- 
sidered the home of their God Jehovah, there to offer 
up sacrifices of gratitude. Moreover, from that time 
on, every year they brought to mind the story of the 
great deliverance through a sacrificial feast called the 
Passover. Under Moses' leadership at Sinai they entered 
into a covenant with Jehovah. They were to be Jeho- 
vah's people forever, and they probably agreed to wor- 
ship him only, as their national God. 

Monotheism. — At this time few had come to per- 
ceive the truth of monotheism, namely, that there is 
but one God in the universe, and that all the so-called 
gods and goddesses are mere superstitions. The He- 
brews, at this time, did not doubt the real existence of 
other gods than Jehovah, such as Chemosh, the god of 
the Moabites, and Marduk and Shamash, gods of Baby- 
lon. But after the deliverance from Egypt they felt 
themselves bound to Jehovah by special ties of gratitude, 
and more and more came to consider the worship of any 
other god, by a Hebrew as base disloyalty. So the Ex- 
odus, and the experiences at Sinai, pointed the way, at 
least, toward monotheism. 

Justice. — Of great importance also was the influence 
of these experiences on their ideas of right and wrong, 
and their conception of the character of Jehovah. Be- 
cause they as a nation had been enslaved they were the 
better able to sympathize with the oppressed and down- 
trodden. "Remember," their prophets could always 
say, "that ye were slaves in the land of Egypt." And 
when, in after years, they were unjust in their dealings 
with foreigners living among them, they were reminded 
that "Ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." 

These ideals were reflected in their conception of their 



A GREAT DELIVERANCE 37 

God. Many of their notions about him were crude and 
unworthy, even late in their history. This was natural 
and inevitable in the light of the times in which they 
lived. But in these Egyptian and desert experiences we 
see a notable beginning of nobler religious ideals. From 
this time on they were impelled to think of Jehovah, 
first of all as the God who had brought them up out of 
the land of Egypt, and who had taken their part, hum- 
ble shepherds as they were, against the mighty Pharaoh, 
the king of Egypt. To that extent, at least, their God 
was a God of justice and mercy. Other ideas, which 
were inconsistent with this, continued for a time, but 
gradually fell away, until at length great seers arose 
who proclaimed that God is nothing else than justice 
and mercy; righteousness is the essence of his character, 
and that is all he asks of men. 

"Righteousness and justice are the foundation of 
thy throne." 

The Ten Commandments 

According to all the Hebrew records, the covenant 
at Sinai was embodied in a divinely given Decalogue, 
or a set of ten short commands, which could be counted 
off on the ten fingers. Two Decalogues are given in 
Exodus, as coming from Moses at Sinai. One is in 
Exodus 34. 17-28. The other is the well-known Deca- 
logue in Exodus 20. The former has to do largely with 
sacrifices and ritual observances. The latter, with its 
stern demands for right conduct toward one's fellow men, 
and for the worship of Jehovah rather than idols, ex- 
presses well the new moral and religious impulses which 
came to the Hebrews under the leadership of their first 
great deliverer. 



38 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

In its original form the Decalogue probably read 
something as follows: 

Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven 

(or molten) image. 
Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah 

thy God in vain. 
Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. 
Honor thy father and thy mother. 
Thou shalt not kill. 
Thou shalt not commit adultery. 
Thou shalt not steal. 
Thou shalt not bear false witness against 

thy neighbor. 
Thou shalt not covet. 

Study Topics 

i. Read in Hastings or any other modern Bible dic- 
tionary, the article on "Exodus." Note the testimony 
of modern travelers on the effect of high winds on the 
upper part of the Red Sea. 

2. Where was Mount Sinai? Look up in Bible dic- 
tionary. 

3. Draw a map, showing the probable route of the 
Hebrews after leaving Egypt. 

4. What part of the Ten Commandments seems most 
to reflect the influence of the great deliverance from 
Egypt? Read Deuteronomy 5. 12-15. 

5. Test your memory for the Ten Commandments 
in their brief form as given in this chapter. 

6. The record of the events of this chapter are found 
in Exodus, chapters 6-12, 14, and 15. Read as much of 
this as your time will permit. 



CHAPTER VI 
FROM THE DESERT INTO CANAAN 

Once safely out of Egypt, the next problem for Moses 
and his people was to find a way into Canaan. Through 
all the centuries the wandering shepherds on the edge 
of the desert have looked with longing eyes on the fertile 
valleys and plains of Palestine. To have a settled, com- 
fortable home, with cisterns of water as well as springs 
and wells; to have fields of wheat, vineyards of grapes, 
and gardens of melons and all luscious fruits — this is the 
picture that haunts the wandering Arab, amid the hard- 
ships and monotony of his desert life. 

The Land of Canaan 

During the twelfth and eleventh centuries before 
Christ there was an unusually good opportunity for 
nomads to settle in Palestine. Before and after that 
time there were strong empires in control of the land 
protecting it from invasion. The Greeks and Romans 
long afterward built a line of fortified towns east of the 
Jordan on the border of the desert, whose ruins may be 
seen to-day. In similar ways the Babylonians and the 
Egyptians had occupied and defended the country. But 
just about the time when the Hebrews escaped from 
Egypt, and for a century and more afterward, both the 
Egyptian and Babylonian governments were weak. And 
as the various petty kings of Canaan itself were usually 
at war with each other, there was no strong government 
anywhere whose soldiers newcomers would have to face. 

The first invasion from the south. — Very soon after 

39 



4 o HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

leaving the mountain of Sinai the Hebrew tribes found 
themselves on the southern edge of Canaan, in what was 
afterward known as the South Country, south of Judah. 
Scouts were sent up as far as the town of Hebron, which 
was afterward for a time the capital of Judah, to inves- 
tigate and report on conditions there. They returned 
with a glowing account of the fertility of the soil. It 
is even stated in the Hebrew traditions that they 
brought back as a sample of the crops, one bunch of 
grapes so large that it had to be carried on a pole be- 
tween two men. 

But with the exception of one of their leaders, a 
certain Caleb, all the men reported that the cities were 
strongly fortified and the inhabitants so warlike that an 
invasion was out of the question. The people adopted 
this "majority report" in spite of the protests of Moses. 
It is probable that the life in Egypt, with something of 
ease and luxury for a time, and then so many years of 
slavery, had sapped their courage and will power. At 
any rate, after a brief encounter with some of the tribes- 
men nearby, they fled in panic into the desert again. 

The Wilderness Wanderings 

There followed, for a generation and more, a period of 
training somewhat like that which Boy Scouts receive, 
or should receive, on their "hikes" and camping trips. 
They learned to be independent and resourceful. It 
was at times very difficult to find food for themselves, 
or pasture for their sheep, and there was nothing to eat 
but the "manna," which they believed their God pro- 
vided for them, and which was perhaps in the nature of 
an edible moss or lichen. At times there was a terrible 
scarcity of water. Always there was the danger of losing 
their way on those trackless wastes, and in this matter 



FROM THE DESERT INTO CANAAN 41 

also they learned to look to their God as their pillar of 
cloud by day and their pillar of fire by night, guiding 
them from oasis to oasis in their search for food and 
pasturage. Then there were wild beasts and poisonous 
serpents and, worst of all, hostile tribes with whom more 
than once they had to fight for their lives. 

Gaining a foothold east of the Jordan. — All these 
years of wandering were spent mostly in the desert 
south of Canaan. Later they worked their way around 
the lower end of the Dead Sea to the east toward what 
was later known as the land of Gilead, on the eastern 
side of the Jordan River. 

This region is very fertile and was always noted in 
Bible times for its fat cattle. But its rolling plains lie 
open and defenseless toward the desert. Here under 
Moses' leadership the Hebrews were able to conquer one 
or two of the petty local chieftains, and thus gained a 
foothold from which they might some time make a 
sally across the River Jordan into central Canaan 
itself. 

The death of Moses. — In this eastern country Mo- 
ses died. According to the Hebrew story, Jehovah gave 
him a view of the land of Canaan from one of the high 
mountains overlooking the Jordan River, after which 
death came. And "no man knoweth of his sepulcher to 
this day." He had been loyal to the divine call which 
had come to him so long ago in a flame which "burned 
and did not consume," loyal to the mother who had 
taught him amid the luxuries of an Egyptian palace 
not to forget his own people and their sorrows. He had 
led his people out of Egypt and its slavery in defiance of 
the proud and mighty Pharaoh. And he had taught 
them to turn to Jehovah as God of justice and to wor- 
ship only him. 



42 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

The Invasion of Canaan from the East 

It was not long after the settlement east of the Jor- 
dan that the Hebrews began to make raids across the 
river, in part under the leadership of one of Moses' lieu- 
tenants, Joshua. The first town they captured was 
Jericho, down in the hot valley of the Jordan River, a 
few miles north of the Dead Sea. They had friends 
within the city, a woman named Rahab and her family. 
Since this was the first city captured it was considered 
to be sacred to Jehovah. The pity of it is that, in ac- 
cordance with the standards of that day, this meant the 
ruthless slaughter of every living thing within its walls, 
including men, women, and little children. 

New conquests. — In these early raids some tribes, 
led by the men of Judah, went southwest and captured 
a few towns in the mountains west of the Dead Sea. 
Others, led by the strong tribe of Ephraim, went north- 
west. Throughout their later history, these were always 
the two leading tribes, Judah in the south, and Ephraim 
in the north. After the victories of the fighting men, 
the women and children and flocks would follow. 

We can imagine these rough warriors, with their un- 
trained boys and girls, swarming into the houses of these 
little towns and villages. Most of them had never been 
inside a house before; and they would be eager to look 
at the furniture and to know the uses of the many 
strange things: for example, the jar of lye for cleaning, 
the perfumes on the stand, the earthen vessels for water 
and milk, the lamps, the baskets made of twigs, the 
pots for boiling broth, the oven for baking, in the door 
yard, and the wine press on the hillside where the grapes 
were trodden at the time of grape harvest. 

The right and wrong of conquest. — One may ask, 



FROM THE DESERT INTO CANAAN 43 

what right had the Hebrews to attack and kill these 
people and seize their homes? Ideal Christian standards 
develop slowly. In these days of which we speak such 
standards had hardly been thought of. All weak nations 
were at the mercy of their stronger neighbors, and no one 
ever questioned the morality of it. It is good to know, 
moreover, that conquest, after all, was not the chief 
method by which the Hebrews made themselves masters 
of Canaan. After they had established themselves, here 
and there, in certain towns, and certain sections of the 
country, they gradually made friends with their Ca- 
naanite neighbors whom they had not been able to con- 
quer at the beginning. In time their children intermar- 
ried with the children of the Canaanites until at last there 
came to be one nation, which was known as the Hebrews, 
or the Children of Israel. 

Study Topics 

1. Read any one of the following sections: Numbers 
11. 13-14, 20, 21; Deuteronomy 34; Joshua 1. 6. 

2. Draw a map showing in a general way the move- 
ments of the Hebrews described in this chapter. 

3. Look up in the Bible dictionary, "Manna," "Spies," 
"Kadesh," "Jericho." 

4. Compare the conquest of Canaan with the treat- 
ment of the American Indians by white settlers. 

5. How should the natives of Africa be treated in 
the opening up of Africa to civilization? 



CHAPTER VII 
LEARNING TO BE FARMERS 

The wandering Hebrew shepherds were not savages 
nor barbarians. In many ways Abraham and his friends 
were cultured, civilized people; but their civilization was 
of a different kind from that of the settled farmers and 
villagers of Canaan. So when the Hebrews crossed the 
Jordan and gradually fought their way to the highland 
fields and villages where they were able to settle down 
and live as farmers and vineyard keepers instead of shep- 
herds, they soon found that they had much to learn. 
The only teachers to whom they could turn were the 
Canaanites. Very soon, therefore, they made friends 
with their Canaanite neighbors. 

"Tell us how to plant wheat," the Hebrews said to 
them, for example; or, "Will you please show us how to 
prune these grape vines?" or, "Won't you give us a few 
lessons in driving oxen? We can't make these young 
steers pull." 

Learning to Raise and Use Cattle 

This lesson about the training and care of cattle was 
one of the first and most necessary parts of their new 
education. As shepherds they knew all about sheep and 
goats; and this knowledge was still valuable, for on 
many a Canaanite hillside goats could thrive where no 
other animal could live. But as farmers they must also 
raise cattle, not only because of the milk, and the beef, 
but because they needed the oxen to draw their carts 
and plows and harrows. Oxen and asses, not horses, 

44 




EGYPTIAN PLOWING 

(Similar to Hebrew Method.) 




EGYPTIANS THRESHING AND WINNOWING 

(Hebrews used same methods.) 




EGYPTIAN OR HEBREW THRESHING FLOOR 



Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Foundation Fund. 



LEARNING TO BE FARMERS 45 

were the work animals of the farmers of those days. 
Oxen were more powerful than asses. Horses were sel- 
dom seen at all. They were used chiefly in war by the 
great military emperors of Egypt and Assyria. 

Driving an ox team. — So we can imagine the young 
Canaanites of those days watching a Hebrew farmer 
taking his first lesson with a team of oxen. There was 
a wooden yoke to lay on their necks; there was the 
two-wheeled farm cart with its long tongue to be fastened 
to the yoke. There was the goad, a long pole with a 
sharp point, to stick into the animals' flanks if they 
should balk. And probably there were many useful 
tricks to be learned; for example, words like our "Gee" 
and "Haw" and "Whoa," to shout at the animals when 
it was necessary to turn to the left or the right or to 
stop altogether. 

Plowing was one of the most difficult of the tasks to 
be done with oxen. The furrows had to be run straight 
and true. And the plows were clumsy affairs — not like 
our shining steel plows to-day — just a long pole with 
a short diagonal crosspiece, sharpened at the lower end, 
or tipped with a small bronze share. 

Crops of Ancient Canaan 

The Hebrews raised the same crops as the earlier Ca- 
naanites. The leading ones were wheat, barley, olives, 
grapes, and figs. The two grain crops were, of course, 
the most necessary to life. They were planted in the 
early spring, and harvested in the summer. The grain 
was sown broadcast, by hand, just as Jesus describes 
in his great parable of the sower. 

Ancient agriculture. — Harvesting and threshing were 
done almost entirely by hand. The grain was cut with 
sickles. Some of the old sickles have recently been 



46 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

found by investigators, buried deep in the mounds 
where ruined Canaanite cities lie hidden. Some of 
these sickles are of metal, and others are made of the 
jawbones of oxen or asses, with sharp flints driven into 
the tooth sockets. After the grain was cut it was tied 
in bundles and carried to the threshing floor, which was 
usually a wide, level space of hard ground or rock. Oxen 
were driven back and forth across the grain on the floor, 
drawing a heavy weight, until all or nearly all the 
kernels were shaken or crushed out of the heads. It 
usually took several days tq thresh all the grain from 
an average-sized field. Then the straw was raked away, 
and the grain was left mixed with chaff and dust. The 
next windy day the winnowers, with large "fans," or 
wooden shovels, came and tossed the mingled chaff and 
dust and grain in the wind. The kernels of wheat fell 
back and the chaff and dust were blown away. Last 
of all, the good clean grain was gathered in baskets 
and bags, and hauled to the farmer's house, or to the 
granary, which was a round brick building standing be- 
side or behind his house. 

Vineyards and Olives 

Another new experience of the Hebrews in Canaan 
was the culture of grapevines. The vineyards were often 
on hillsides, especially those facing the south, and hence 
warmed by the early spring sunshine. The soil on these 
hillsides had to be terraced so that the rain would not 
wash it away. The vines had to be planted, trained 
on trellises, and pruned. At the time of the grape har- 
vest many of the grapes, especially of the sweeter varie- 
ties, were set aside for raisins. They were spread out 
on sheets in the hot sunshine until they were dry and 
wrinkled. Then they were packed away in jars, where 



LEARNING TO BE FARMERS 47 

they settled into delicious cakes. Figs were dried and 
packed in the same way. 

The manufacture of wine. — Many of the grapes 
were used for wine. The juice of these was trodden 
out in wine-presses. These were large hollows several 
feet square, cut in the solid rock on the hillside. There 
were always two of them, one lower than the other, 
with connecting passages. The bunches of grapes were 
piled in great heaps in the higher of the two, and then 
it was great fun for the boys and girls and youths and 
maidens to jump barefooted and barelegged among the 
purple clusters, and trample them until the foaming 
red juice ran down into the lower of the stone cham- 
bers, where it was taken up with gourd dippers and 
poured into skins. The youngsters would come 
home with their legs and shirts all stained and spotted 
red. 

Olive orchards. — Almost every Canaanite farm had 
a few olive trees or a small olive orchard. The olives 
were prized for the oil which was squeezed from them. 
This oil was used as we use butter, with bread and in 
cooking. It was also burned in lamps. In fact, it was 
their chief fuel for lighting purposes. 

The olive press was a large stone with a hollow in 
the top. From the bottom of the hollow, a hole was 
drilled through to the outside of the stone. Across the 
hollow swung a wooden beam, one end riveted to a tree 
or another stone, and the other end carrying weights. 
The ripe olives were shaken from the trees, and basket 
full after basket full poured into the hollow stone. 
Then the weighted beam would be laid across the top, 
with flat stones under it, fitting down into the hollow 
over the olives. The oil, trickling out below, was 
strained and stored in jars. 



48 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

Hard Work and Bright Hopes 

Most of these different kinds of crops called for an 
immense amount of hard work and drudgery. Think 
of the weariness of the reapers, swinging their sickles 
in the wheat or barley all day long under the hot 
Syrian sun. Think of the winnowers, tossing the grain 
into the wind. Think of the aching backs of the plower 
and the sower. Of course there were happy hours, also. 
It was great fun to ride home behind the oxen, on a 
cart packed full and pressed down with golden sheaves. 
The time of treading out the grapes was a festival of 
laughter, love-making, and song. And in the rainy 
season, after a year of plentiful harvests, when the 
granaries and cellars were well stored, there must have 
been many happy days of quiet rest and play in He- 
brew homes. 

But most of all, what cheered them on was the hope 
of better days to come, when their children at least, or 
their children's children, would not have to toil quite 
so hard or so long each day, and when the danger of 
famine and starvation would not loom up quite so 
grimly as in the old days in the desert when one sum- 
mer of drought might mean death for all. Here in 
Canaan, they thought, we will surely be happy by 
and by. 

Study Topics 

i. Explain the following Scripture passages, in the 
light of the customs described in this chapter: Isaiah 
63. 2; Deuteronomy 25. 4; Matthew 3. 12. 

2. Psalm 23. 1 draws a great lesson about God from 
the experiences of shepherd life. What lesson about 
God is drawn from farm life in Isaiah 5. 1—7? 




CANAANITE OR HEBREW PLOWSHARES 

Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration Fund. 



CHAPTER VIII 
VILLAGE LIFE IN CANAAN 

The farmers of ancient Canaan all lived in villages. 
No farmer would have dreamed of building an isolated 
house for his family on his own field out of sight of 
his nearest neighbor as our American farmers do. The 
danger from robbers would have been too great. Instead 
of that, the Hebrew farmer lived in the nearest village 
or town. Early in the morning he went out to his field, 
and in the evening returned to his home inside the pro- 
tecting village walls. 

These ancient villages would have seemed to us most 
unattractive places. The houses were crowded close 
together. The streets were only narrow crooked lanes 
between the houses. In the rear room of each house 
were the stalls of the family ox and ass. The brays of 
the ass were the alarm clock in the early morning. 
There was no drainage. Garbage was thrown into the 
street. There were smells of all varieties. One is not 
surprised by the frequent stories of pestilences in the 
Old-Testament history. 

Compensations of village life. — It seems strange 
that people who were accustomed to life in the open 
desert should have ever brought themselves to settle 
down in these dirty, ill-smelling places. Surely, at first 
they must often have been homesick for the clean, pure 
air of the plains. On the other hand, probably most 
of them were willing to put up with the disagreeable 
odors and the dirty streets for the sake of being near 
other people. The desert was lonesome. In the vil- 

49 



5 o HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

lage there was always something going on, something to 
hear and see, gossip of weddings and courtships and 
quarrels. Even to-day we find it hard to persuade 
those who are accustomed to the city to live in the 
country. Even though their city home may be a dark 
tenement in the slums, yet they enjoy being in a 
crowd of their fellow men. The country seems lone- 
some. 

Lessons in House Building 

This village and town life, like the work on the farm, 
was a new school for the Hebrew shepherds, and set 
many an interesting problem for them to solve. They 
had to learn to build and repair houses. They were 
most often built of rough stones set in mud. The mud, 
when dry, became fairly hard, but not like mortar or 
cement. It was always easy for a thief "to dig through 
and steal," as Jesus so graphically described. Even 
though no thief came the dried mud was always 
crumbling, leaving holes between the stones through 
which snakes or lizards could crawl. In such a house, 
if a man should lean against the wall, it might easily 
happen that a serpent would bite him, as the prophet 
Amos suggests. 1 

Primitive Homes. — The floor of the average poor 
man's house was simply the hard ground. The flat roof 
was made of poles thatched with straw or brushwood 
and covered over with mud or clay. There was seldom 
more than one room. Often there were no windows; 
even in the palaces of kings there were in those days 
no windows of glass. In one corner of the room there 
was a fireplace where the family cooking was done. 
There was no chimney, however, and the smoke had to 
go out through the open door. The door itself was 



VILLAGE LIFE IN CANAAN 51 

generally fastened to a post, the lower end of which 
turned in a hollow socket in a heavy stone. When 
the family went away from home the door was locked 
with a huge wooden key, which was carried, not in 
the pocket, like our keys, but over the shoulder. 
Such keys had this advantage, at any rate, over ours. 
You could not very well lose them and you did not 
need a key ring. 

Houses of the well-to-do. — Rich men's houses 
were, of course, more substantially and comfortably 
built. Real mortar made of lime was used in the 
walls. There were several rooms, including perhaps a 
cool "summer house" on the roof, making a kind of 
second story. One climbed up to these upper rooms by 
a ladder on the outside. The roof was solidly built 
and surrounded by a railing, so that on a hot summer 
evening the family could sit there and enjoy the cool 
evening breeze. There were windows also, covered 
with wooden lattice work, which let in light and air. 

No doubt every Hebrew father hoped that some day 
he or his children might live in such a house. Some of 
them learned the builder's trade and were able to lay 
stones in mortar and to use saws and axes and nails 
and other tools for woodwork. Yet when David built 
his palace, he had to send to Tyre for skilled masons. 
Evidently in his day the Hebrews had not progressed 
very far in the manual training department of their 
new school. 



Other Village Arts and Crafts 

Many trades, which with us are carried on in separate 
shops, were a part of the household work among the 
ancient Hebrews: for example, spinning and weaving 



52 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

and the making of baskets, of shoes, girdles, and other 
articles of skin or leather. We will study some of 
these household activities in another chapter. Other 
trades, however, even in the early days, were carried 
on by special artisans who worked at nothing else. 

Trained artisans. — Metal workers, for example, 
formed a special trade. Among the excavations of 
ancient Canaanite cities have been found the ruins of 
a blacksmith shop. When the Hebrews entered Canaan 
no one had as yet learned the art of working in iron 
and steel by means of a forge with a forced draft. 
All tools and metal implements, such as plowshares, 
knives, axes, saws, and so on, were made of bronze, 
which consists of copper mixed and hardened with tin. 
The blacksmith melted the metals in a very simple and 
rough furnace of clay heated by charcoal. The bronze 
itself, although harder than copper, could be worked 
into the desired shape by hammering and filing, with- 
out the use of heat. We who are used to our sharp, 
finely tempered tools of steel would certainly have 
found these clumsy bronze affairs most unsatisfactory. 

The pottery shop. — Another very ancient trade is 
that of the potter. This worker did not need much of 
a shop; only an oven in which to fire his products, a 
pile of clay, and a wheel. This consisted of a frame, 
in which turned an upright rod on which were two flat 
wooden wheels, one small at about the height of the 
worker's hands as he sat in front of it, and the other 
larger, to be turned by the feet. A heap of clay was 
placed on the upper wheel, which was then turned by 
the revolving rod, the potter's feet all the time kicking 
on the larger wheel below. The whirling mass was 
shaped by the fingers, according to the plan in the 
worker's mind. 





%^ A ' ■ 


****■ (ufln 


l£f 


■ 


^ ■ 




\M 




MODERN ARAB WOMAN SPINNING 



ANCIENT HEBREW 
DOOR KEY 




SMALLER KEY 



HEBREW NEEDLES OF BONE 



Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration Fund. 



VILLAGE LIFE IN CANAAN 53 

How quickly a modem boy would have contrived a 
different arrangement, with a belt and foot-tread like 
the one on our mother's sewing machine! But for those 
days the ancient wheel was ingenious. Many different 
kinds of Hebrew pottery are found in the excavations: 
large jars, small cups, lamps of all sizes and shapes and 
even babies' rattles. 

How Hebrew boys learned a trade. — The young- 
sters from the desert had never seen any of these 
interesting crafts, except perhaps now and then when 
their fathers had brought them with the wool to market. 
But now, on a rainy day when there was no work to be 
done in the field or at home, the boys would go down 
the street to the blacksmith shop, or to the shed where 
the old Canaanite potter worked his clay. One of the 
older boys would say, "Let me see if I can make some- 
thing," and if the old man was good-natured he would 
let him try and perhaps would teach him some of the 
tricks of the trade. By and by the boy would hire out 
as a potter's helper and in a year or two would set up 
a little pottery of his own. 

So there came to be Hebrew as well as Canaanite 
potters and blacksmiths. They were proud of their 
skill in these arts, and as a nation they never were 
foolish enough to look down on them or to despise 
those who practiced them. All work was looked on 
as honorable. The apostle Paul was a tent-maker. 
Jesus was a carpenter. And in this respect for honest 
and useful work we may see another reason why the 
people of Israel have played so remarkable a part in 
the life of humanity. 

Study Topics 
j. Explain the following Scripture passage in the 



54 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

light of the customs described in this chapter. Isaiah 
22. 22; Deuteronomy 22. 8. 

2. In earlier chapters we have seen how the Hebrew 
leaders drew lessons about God from shepherd life (Psalm 
23), and from farm life (Isaiah 5. 1-7). What lesson did 
a great prophet learn in regard to God from the experi- 
ences of an artisan? (Jeremiah 18. 1-6.) 

3. Why was it necessary to build a tower in a 
Canaanite vineyard, as suggested in Isaiah 5. 2 and 

Mark 12. 1? 



CHAPTER IX 
KEEPING HOUSE INSTEAD OF CAMPING OUT 

Let us suppose that we have been invited to spend 
a day or two as guests in the home of one of these 
Hebrew families who have just settled in Canaan and 
begun to learn the new arts and customs of the land. 
It is one of the poorer homes. We have slept through 
the night on our mat spread on the dirt floor of the 
house, with our cloak over us to keep us warm. Be- 
fore daylight we are awakened by the older people 
moving about in the dim light of the burning wick in 
the saucer of oil. Soon everyone is awake. The mats 
are rolled up and piled in a corner. In the early dawn 
one of the older girls takes a jar on her shoulder and 
goes for water to the spring, which is outside the village 
half way up the hill. 

If we are expecting to be called to breakfast, we shall 
be disappointed. There is no regular morning meal, 
although everyone helps himself to a bite or two of bread 
from the bread basket in the corner of the room. By 
and by father and the older boys take the ox and the 
ass from the shed just back of the one-roomed house 
(we are lucky if the animals were not kept all night in 
the house itself) and start for the field. And the women 
also have their day's work before them in the house. 
First of all, there is a bag of wheat to be ground into 
flour. 

Home Tasks 

In the desert the wheat or barley, when they had it, 
was merely pounded between two rough stones such as 
could be picked up anywhere. The flour, or meal, 

55 



56 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

which was made in this way was not very good. Here 
in Canaan, each house had a rude stone hand-mill for 
grinding grain. It consists of a large lower stone with 
a saddle-shaped hollow on the upper side. The upper 
stone is somewhat like a large, very heavy rolling pin. 
The grain is poured into the hollow and the upper stone 
is rolled back and forth over it while the flour gradually 
sifts out over the sides on to the cloth which is spread 
on the ground underneath the mill. It is a monotonous 
task, and very often two people work it together, one 
feeding in the grain and the other turning the millstone. 
This is pleasanter, as each worker is "company" for the 
other. Perhaps our hostess will let us roll the millstone 
for her while she feeds in the grain and sweeps up the 
flour from the cloth on the ground. 

Baking bread. — After the wheat is ground into flour 
there is bread to be baked. On the plains they do not 
use much yeast-bread, for this requires an oven for 
baking and one cannot carry heavy ovens from camp 
to camp. But in Canaan each family has its oven. It 
is made of baked clay and looks like a section of tiling 
standing on end, about two feet high, the clay being 
about an inch and a half thick. There is a cover of the 
same material. Sometimes the fire is made on the inside 
and the loaves of dough plastered on the outside. More 
often the loaves are placed on a baking tray, let down 
on the inside of the oven, and the fire built all around 
and over it outside. 

All sorts of fuel are used. Wood is the best, of course, 
but in that land wood has always been scarce. In the 
times of the Hebrews, as to-day, dried manure, straw, 
and all sorts of refuse were used. Jesus speaks of the 
grass of the field, "which to-day is, and to-morrow is 
cast into the oven." 



KEEPING HOUSE vs. CAMPING OUT 57 

Baking day. — To-day, while we are visiting, our He- 
brew hostess is kneading some dough. She "set it" 
last night, pouring in some liquid yeast. By and by it 
is ready for baking. A tray of small loaves about the 
size of biscuits is placed in the oven, and a great pile of 
dried grass placed around the sides and over the cover. 
By and by the fire is lighted from some coals on the 
hearth; and in a few moments the house is filled with 
smoke. We all go out on the street until the oven 
is heated and the smoke has escaped. 

Weaving Wool and Flax 

Another household utensil which Hebrew women 
learned to use in Canaan was the heavy loom. This 
consisted of a low horizontal frame, with a device for 
separating the odd and even threads of the "warp" while 
a shuttle was drawn through them, carrying the yarn for 
the "web," or the cross threads. With this kind of a 
loom it was possible to weave much more rapidly than 
when one had to insert each thread, plaiting it over and 
under, by hand. There is, no doubt, one of these looms 
in the house where we are visiting. 

Making linen out of flax. — In the desert almost all 
garments were made of wool, especially in the case of 
the poorer tribes, who could not afford to buy linen. 
In those days the use of cotton was probably un- 
known. Now everyone knows how it feels to wear a 
flannel shirt on a hot summer day. And one of the 
things which drew the Hebrew shepherds to Canaan 
was the hope of raising a little flax on each farm, and 
spinning it into cool, soft linen garments for the hot 
summers. So it may be that a part of the work in the 
house we are visiting to-day is to soak some of the 
stalks of flax in water, or to beat out from them the 



58 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

long fibers, or to spin and weave some of these fibers 
into cloth. 

Preparing Dinner 

Of course the main business of each day in the house- 
hold then, as now, is to get dinner ready. There is a 
light lunch about noon for the women and children. 
To-day perhaps we have some bread and milk. But as 
the sun begins to sink in the west we know that before 
long the men folks will come home hungry. We must 
have dinner ready for them when they come. If it has 
been a good year, even poor families in Canaan can 
have a fairly good meal. There is no meat, unless per- 
haps a lamb or a kid has been killed, especially for us as 
guests. But there is the curdled milk, and bread with 
olive oil and other things which shepherd folk never 
have. Here's a steaming kettle of beans or lentils. 
How good they smell! And here are some bunches of 
raisins and figs, just as sweet and luscious as those 
which we buy in the fruit stores in America. The figs 
in our stores may have come from that very country 
of which we are studying. 

Serving the meal.— Soon the father and the boys 
come home. The ox and the ass are fed in the stall 
behind the house. The mother spreads a cloth on the 
ground and on it places a small stand about eight 
inches high, which is their only dining-room table. 
The pot of beans is placed on this stand, and the bread 
and other good things on the cloth around it. We all 
sit down on the ground and begin to eat. 

Fingers were made before forks. For the beans, 
however, we need a spoon, and here are some shells 
from the beach that serve admirably for that purpose; 
and we all dip into the same dish on the little stand. 



KEEPING HOUSE vs. CAMPING OUT 59 

By and by, when all is gone but the liquid, we sop 
that up with pieces of bread. When every crumb is 
picked up and eaten, we all lift our eyes to heaven, 
and the father repeats a prayer of thanksgiving to God. 
Dinner is over. The sun has set. It is growing dark, 
and soon it will be time to go to bed. 

Study Topics 

1. Explain the following Scripture passages in the 
light of this chapter: 

Judges 16. 13; Deuteronomy 24. 6; Matthew 24. 41. 

2. Read Proverbs 31. 10-31 for another picture of 
daily life in an ancient Hebrew home. What is said in 
this chapter about the making of beautiful as well as 
necessary things, and about the doing of kindly deeds? 



CHAPTER X 
MORAL VICTORIES IN CANAAN 

On the whole, Canaan was a good school for the 
Hebrew shepherds. New arts to learn, new crops to 
raise, new kinds of cloth to spin and weave, new kinds 
of food to cook — all this helped to make life more 
interesting and worth while. But there were other 
lessons which newcomers might learn which were not 
so wholesome. 

Wine drinking, for example, was a habit which the 
wisest of the Hebrews always feared. The wine which 
they made in those foaming wine-presses was, of course, 
mild and harmless as compared with the distilled liquors 
of modern times. But even Canaanitish wine could 
deaden men's consciences and make them more like 
beasts than men. "Wine is a mocker," said one of 
the sages who wrote the book of Proverbs, "strong 
drink is raging, and he that is deceived thereby is not 
wise." 

Idolatry in Canaan 

Canaanite religion was to a large extent an unwhole- 
some influence. The Canaanites worshiped many gods. 
Each village had its Baal, or lord, who had to be 
bribed with burnt offerings of fat beasts, or (as they 
thought) the soil would lose its fertility and the crops 
would fail. 

Dangerous examples. — These sacrificial rites were 
carried on in the shrines or "high places," one of which 
stood outside almost every village and town. They 
often were accompanied by dances and other perform- 
ances which were licentious and degrading. The 
60 



MORAL VICTORIES IN CANAAN 61 

Hebrews, of course, were pledged to worship only 
Jehovah. Moreover, during these first centuries in 
Canaan they were very poor, and had little time for the 
carousals which went on at the "high places" in the 
name of religion. Corruption usually comes with 
wealth and luxury. Poverty and hardship are often 
useful safeguards. But from the beginning these 
heathen rites were a temptation and a snare in the 
lives of the Hebrews. 

Canaanite Beliefs about the World 

There are certain questions which awaken the 
curiosity of everyone. How did this wonderful world 
come into existence? How is it that you and I hap- 
pen to be here? How did things in general come to 
be as they are? Some of these difficult questions are 
to-day being partly answered by careful students of 
science. In ancient times there was little or no science, 
yet in every country there were certain answers to 
these questions handed down from generation to genera- 
tion and generally accepted as true. 

Idolatrous stories of creation. — When the Hebrews 
entered Canaan they naturally were inclined to accept 
the ideas of the earlier inhabitants of that country, 
whose knowledge in regard to many matters was far 
beyond theirs. The Canaanites in turn had got most 
of their ideas from the leading civilized nations of 
that day, the Egyptians, and especially the Babylonians. 
From these sources had come certain stories about the 
beginning of things. 

Babylonian traders in the inns of Canaan used to tell 
a story of the creation of the world, and also about a 
great flood which the gods once sent upon the earth. 

How the Hebrews retold these stories. — The best 



62 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

men among the Hebrews knew that these stories were 
imperfect. Their forty years training in the wilderness 
had made them wise in the ways of God. This wis- 
dom enabled them to sift the wheat from the chaff. 
They retold these stories, omitting the error, and re- 
taining the truth. Thus we come to have the wonder- 
ful stories of the creation and the flood as we find them 
in the Bible. 

How these stories were handed down. — In the 
earliest days of the settlement in Canaan very few He- 
brews, if any, could read or write. Possibly Moses 
understood the Egyptian picture-writing, or the wedge- 
shaped letters of the Babylonian clay tablets. The 
Hebrew letters, however, in which the books of the Old 
Testament afterward were written, were invented by 
the Phoenicians, and the Phoenicians passed on their 
invention to the old Canaanites. 

After the Hebrews came it was not long before am- 
bitious Hebrew boys and girls were staring at the queer 
marks in the inscriptions which they found here and 
there, over the gates of Canaanite cities or on the 
tombs of Canaanite kings. Gradually they learned to 
spell out syllables, words, and sentences, and then they 
learned to copy these same letters, so that in time 
the Hebrews were making inscriptions and books of 
their own. Among the earliest of these books was one 
containing the stories of the creation and the flood. 
They had been handed down by word of mouth from 
one generation to another, until finally they were 
gathered into a book. This became a part of the book 
of Genesis in our Bible. 

New Tendencies to Selfishness in Canaan 
Another and different kind of temptation which the 



MORAL VICTORIES IN CANAAN 63 

Hebrews met in Canaan was the tendency to forget 
their own tribal brothers as they scattered here and 
there and settled down, each family with its own little 
farm. There were some, naturally, who were more suc- 
cessful as farmers than others. And those who were 
unfortunate were not always the lazy or thriftless. 
Sickness or accident or some pest which attacked the 
grain or the cattle would sometimes wipe out the en- 
tire property of one of those little peasant farmers and 
leave him and his children face to face with starvation 
and death. Now, in the old days in the desert, as long 
as the tribe had a crust of bread or a drop of water, 
the weakest and poorest could count on a share. But 
here in Canaan the poor, the widow, the orphan, did 
not always feel so surely the sheltering arms of kindness 
and brotherhood. 

Humane laws enacted. — Yet the spirit of Moses 
still lived and made its power felt. Certain laws grad- 
ually came to be accepted during this period when the 
Hebrews were learning to be farmers which were a 
special protection to the poor and helpless, just as the 
great leader would have chosen. We can imagine how 
these laws were first proclaimed by the chiefs of the 
clans and the elders of the villages wherever there were 
men who remembered how, years before, the whole 
nation had been poor and oppressed and enslaved. 
Here are some examples: 

"Ye shall not afflict any widow, or 
fatherless child. If thou afflict them in 
any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I 
will surely hear their cry." 

"If thou lend money to any of my people 
with thee that is poor, thou shalt not be to 



64 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

him as a creditor; neither shall ye lay upon 
him usury. If thou at all take thy neigh- 
bor's garment to pledge, thou shalt restore 
it unto him before the sun goeth down; for 
that is his only covering, it is his garment 
for his skin : wherein shall he sleep? And 
it shall come to pass when he crieth unto 
me, that I will hear; for I am gracious." 

"Thou shalt not oppress thy neighbor, 
nor rob him; the wages of a hired servant 
shall not abide with thee all night until the 
morning." 

There is one law which illustrates especially well how 
the best men among the Hebrews tried to meet the new 
temptations of Canaan in the spirit of kindness and 
justice which they had learned from Moses. 

"When ye reap the harvest of your land, 
thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of 
thy field, neither shalt thou gather the 
gleaning of the harvest. And thou shalt 
not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou 
gather the fallen fruit of thy vineyard. 
Thou shalt leave them for the poor and the 
stranger." 

It was already the custom among the Canaanites to 
leave the grain in the corners of the fields uncut, and 
not to pick up the scattered gleanings, which fell from 
the arms of the harvesters, and to leave on the ground 
the fruit that fell of itself from the vines and fruit 
trees. With the Canaanites this was on account of a 
superstition; the gleanings and the grain in the cor- 
ners of the fields were for the Baal, or god of the field. 



MORAL VICTORIES IN CANAAN 65 

If they were taken he would be angry. The Hebrews 
kept the old custom, but with a different aim — not to 
keep the Baal in good humor, but to make life a bit 
easier for the poor and unfortunate among their own 
neighbors. It was in accordance with this law that 
Ruth, although a foreigner, was allowed to glean after 
the reapers in the barley field of Boaz of Bethlehem, 
and thus obtained food to keep herself and her mother 
alive. So among these lowly people were being laid 
the foundations of that greater and better civilization 
for which Moses had prepared the way, and of which 
Abraham had dimly dreamed. 

Study Topics 

1. What parts of this chapter illustrate the special 
talent of the Hebrews for discovering good in things 
partly evil? 

2. How could this talent be used in our American 
life? For example, in the matter of moving picture 
shows? 

3. Read Leviticus 19. This chapter contains laws 
which were made during the period of the settlement 
in Canaan. Which of them seem to you to be in the 
spirit of Moses? 



CHAPTER XI 
LESSONS IN COOPERATION 

After the Hebrews began to be settled in Canaan, 
not only were they tempted to neglect the poor and 
unfortunate; they also failed to stand together against 
their enemies. Each tribe and clan seemed to care only 
for its own safety. 

The men of Judah in the south, the Ephraimites in 
central Canaan, and the Naphtalites in the northern 
hills, and Gilead and Reuben across the Jordan — each 
group tried to fight its own battles. Often they fought 
with each other. There was a bloody war between the 
men of Gilead, and their cousins, the Ephraimites on 
the opposite side of the Jordan. The Ephraimites 
crossed the river and attacked the Gileadites, and were 
badly beaten; when they tried to get back home again, 
they found the Gileadites holding the fords of the river. 
Each fugitive was asked, "Are you an Ephraimite?" 
If he said "No," they would order him to say "Shib- 
boleth" (a Hebrew word). And if he said "Sibboleth" 
(the Gileadite dialect), and did not pronounce it exactly 
right, then they would kill him. 

This was only one example of the many wars be- 
tween the tribes. There was no central government to 
keep the peace. This age in their history is sometimes 
called the period of the Judges. But these judges did 
not rule over the whole land. Most of them were only 
petty champions, each of whom helped his own tribe to 
defend itself against its enemies. 

66 



LESSONS IN COOPERATION 67 

Sisera and Deborah 

In this disorganized state they would have been an 
easy prey to any strong enemy; and before long, an 
enemy came. In the fertile plain of Esdraelon, which 
cuts across Palestine just north of the central highland, 
there was a group of Canaanite towns which the He- 
brews had not as yet conquered. These were organized 
into a kingdom by a warrior named Sisera, who at once 
began to reconquer those parts of the country which 
now belonged to the Hebrews. It was a bitter time 
for the tribes that were settled around the Plain of 
Esdraelon. Those villages which were perched on the 
mountain sides held out for a time, but the inhabitants 
dared not go down into the valleys. They could not 
take their grain to the market. The valley roads were 
all deserted except for bands of Sisera's troopers. Each 
year Sisera grew stronger, and more of the Hebrews sub- 
mitted to him. In a little while there would have been 
none left to call themselves Hebrews and to keep up 
the noble traditions and hopes of Moses and Abraham. 

A wise and patriotic woman. — If only the more 
distant tribes had come to the help of those that bor- 
dered on Sisera's kingdom, if only all the Hebrews had 
stood together, they could easily have defended them- 
selves. But no one seemed to see this, or had faith 
enough to try to accomplish anything in this way 
"until Deborah arose." One day there came up 
through the sheepfolds of the Reubenites this remark- 
able woman whose name was Deborah. "Come to the 
help of your brethren across the river," she said, as she 
told her story. "Come to the help of Jehovah, by 
helping his people." 

At first the Reubenites seemed greatly moved by 



68 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

Deborah's words. Certainly, they would come, when- 
ever Deborah and her friends were ready. So the brave 
woman was encouraged and went to other tribes, to all 
of them one after another. But not everywhere was 
she successful. Many said: "Why should we go up 
and help your people? Suppose Sisera wins, he will 
come and punish us. We will stay here where we are 
safe." Even the Reubenites, whose first resolves had 
been so brave, changed their minds, and "stayed in 
their sheepfolds, listening to the pipings of the flocks." 

The battle by the Kishon River. — After many weeks 
of tramping, however, Deborah was able to get a few of 
the tribes really organized. Ephraim, Benjamin, Naph- 
tali, Zebulun, Issachar, and some smaller clans all prom- 
ised to send troops and did send them. An army was 
gathered under a captain named Barak. The Canaan- 
ites under Sisera came out to fight them, and the bat- 
tle took place on the flat fields of the Plain of Es- 
draelon. It looked like a victory for Sisera. He had 
charioteers as well as foot soldiers — troops of men in 
heavy war carts, from the axles of which extended sharp 
blades like scythes. 

But Deborah had called to her people in the name 
of Jehovah. And Jehovah seemed, indeed, to be on 
their side. We may well believe that it was the spirit 
of God that put it into the hearts of Deborah and 
Barak to delay the battle until there should be a rainy 
day. When the clash finally came there was a heavy 
downpour. The flat plain became a swamp. The war 
chariots sank into the mud and were helpless. The 
Canaanites became panic-stricken and fled in terror. 
Many of them were drowned in the attempt to cross 
the Kishon, which is usually a shallow creek, but on 
that day was a deep and swiftly flowing torrent. Sisera, 



LESSONS IN COOPERATION 69 

himself in flight, was killed by a woman in whose tent 
he tried to take refuge. The battle was won for Je- 
hovah's people. The Hebrews could still be free and 
independent, and they had learned a valuable lesson — 
the necessity for cooperation. 

Study Topics 

1. Read chapters 4 and 5 of the book of Judges. 

2. With the help of a map showing the location of 
the various tribes in Canaan, find the ones which were 
most in danger from Sisera, whose kingdom was in the 
Plain of Esdraelon. 

3. With the help of the map, explain why it was not 
easy for Deborah to persuade the Reubenites and the 
Gileadites to enter this war. 

4. What arguments would you have used to persuade 
them? 

5. Could you use the same arguments in favor of the 
League of Nations and our membership in it, as a 
nation? 



CHAPTER XII 
EXPERIMENTS IN GOVERNMENT 

After Sisera was conquered, the Hebrew tribes which 
had combined against him immediately fell apart, 
relapsing into the same state of disunion and disorgani- 
zation as before. And very soon other enemies took 
advantage of it to plunder and kill. 

The Midianites. — Among the most harassing of 
these enemies for a time were the Midianites, who 
lived as nomads, roaming over the deserts just as the 
Hebrews themselves had done except that they made 
their living chiefly by robbery. Every spring just after 
the wheat and barley had begun to sprout, covering 
all the fields with a carpet of the brightest green, bands 
of these nomads would drive their flocks across the 
Jordan and turn them loose on the young grain while 
the men stood guard in armed bands. In the summer 
and fall after what was left of the grain had been har- 
vested and beaten out on the threshing floors they 
would come again and steal the threshed grain, taking 
it away in bags on the backs of camels. 

Sometimes the Hebrews would keep the wheat and 
barley unthreshed with the sheaves piled up in grain 
ricks and would thresh it out, a little at a time, in the 
low, half-concealed wine presses, which were dug in the 
rock. No one's life was safe where these marauders 
were in the habit of coming, and no family could be 
sure of food to carry them over the winter months. 
70 



EXPERIMENTS IN GOVERNMENT 71 

Gideon, the Abiezrite 

In the tribe of Manasseh there was a little clan 
called Abiezer. One night a band of Midianites came 
on camels and raided the villages of this clan, killing 
some of the people, and carrying away whatever they 
found of value. They then fled back across the Jordan 
River to the desert before enough Hebrew men could get 
together to resist them. 

The counter-raid. — In the heart of one young man, 
the brother of some who were killed, God planted a 
sudden determination to put a stop to these murders 
and robberies. He called for volunteers to pursue this 
band across the river, and when some three hundred 
had responded they set out in hot haste, down the 
hillsides into the plain of the Jordan, up the slopes on 
the eastern side, and out onto the plains where the 
Midianites supposed they were safe. It was hard to 
track them over these solitary wastes; and they had 
their swift camels. But Gideon trailed them; stealing 
up at night, he surprised them. They fled in terror 
leaving much spoil, and for many years the Hebrews 
were not molested by this particular tribe of desert 
wanderers. 

The kingdom of Gideon.— Out of this experience the 
Hebrews in central Canaan gained another lesson in co- 
operation; and they made up their minds to profit by 
it. Here is a man, they said to themselves, who can 
lead us to victory against our foes. If we all agree to 
do as he says we can all stand together, each for all 
and all for each. So they came to Gideon, and asked 
him to be their ruler. He refused at first, but it is 
clear that he finally accepted and really became king 
over some of the tribes and clans of central Canaan. 



72 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

One of his sons, a certain Abimelech, seized the king- 
dom after Gideon's death and proved to be a selfish 
tyrant. He was killed by his enemies, and that was 
the end of the dynasty of Gideon. "How can we have 
unity and cooperation under a strong leader," the 
Hebrews asked themselves, "and not at the same time 
be in danger of slavery under a ruthless tyrant?" 
That was a difficult question. 

The Philistines 

Meanwhile a national enemy far more dangerous 
than any previously mentioned had begun to threaten 
their existence as a people. About the same time that 
the Hebrews settled in Canaan there had landed from 
ships on the southwestern coast some newcomers of 
another race, perhaps akin to the Greeks; they were 
called Philistines. They quickly became a rich and 
powerful nation, holding the coast towns of Gath, As- 
kelon, Gaza, Ashdod, and Ekron. They were ambitious 
to become masters of the whole land of Canaan. 
Their soldiers, in well-trained bands, built forts and 
established garrisons here and there, in the leading 
towns, and compelled the Hebrews to pay tribute. 

At the same time they did not protect the country 
from other enemies. For example, there were the 
Amalekites on the southern border, who were robber- 
nomads, just like the Midianites on the east. There 
were the people of Ammon, a town east of the Jordan. 
From these and other petty enemies the Hebrews 
suffered much, and the Philistines did nothing to help 
them. All they cared about was the tribute. "O for 
a leader like Deborah and Gideon!" the Hebrews once 
again began to cry. 

The messengers with the raw meat. — One day 



EXPERIMENTS IN GOVERNMENT 73 

messengers came hurrying through the towns and 
villages of central Canaan bearing sacks or baskets of 
raw beef chopped into small squares. To the leading 
men of each village, they handed a piece of the bloody 
flesh with this message: "This piece of ox flesh is from 
Saul, the son of Kish, of Gibeah in Benjamin. As this 
flesh is cut into small pieces so will the flesh of the 
men of your village be chopped up if you do not come 
at once, armed for battle, to help our brothers in Jabesh 
in Gilead east of the Jordan, which is besieged by the 
Ammonites." "Who is Saul?" many asked, and few 
could answer. Some perhaps were able to explain that 
he was a brave and able young farmer, a friend of a 
prophet named Samuel, in the tribe of Benjamin. But 
it was the raw meat that persuaded them to obey the 
summons. Here is a real leader, they said, a man who 
means what he says. And two or three nights later an 
army of Hebrews, with Saul in the lead, came dashing 
in among the tents of the Ammonites who were be- 
sieging Jabesh and put them to flight. The Gileadites 
were saved; and for years to come they remembered 
Saul with gratitude. 

The Kingdom of Saul 

Shortly after this victory there was a great gathering 
of the Hebrews of Benjamin and some of the neigh- 
boring tribes and Saul was elected as king. Would he 
also become a tyrant? Would he make their children 
slaves and take the best of their flocks and herds and 
wheat and oil, leaving them in poverty while he lived 
in luxury? There were many who thought so. The 
prophet Samuel, himself Saul's friend, warned them 
of the danger although he helped to make Saul king. 
But the danger from the Philistines was so great and 



74 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

they had suffered so much from their enemies on account 
of their lack of unity that they were willing to take the 
risk of organizing themselves as a kingdom under Saul. 
The first victories over the Philistines. — Soon there 
came a summons to battle. The first encounter turned 
out well for the Hebrews. One of Saul's sons named 
Jonathan was especially brave and skillful as a leader, 
and was much loved by the people. Other victories 
followed. More and more clans and tribes flocked to 
Saul's standard. A young man from Judah, named 
David, became famous as a captain and was made the 
chief commander of Saul's armies. The Philistines 
were not driven out from their forts, but they were 
held in check and the sky seemed brighter. There was 
a chance now for victory and peace. Everyone was 
hopeful for better things. When the soldiers came back 
from fighting the Philistines, the women would go to 
meet them with songs and dances. One of their songs 
ran like this: 

"Saul has slain his thousands 
And David his ten thousands." 

Saul's jealousy. — When Saul heard of this couplet 
he was jealous. "They gave more glory to David than 
to me," he thought. "One of these days, they will make 
him king in my place." His son Jonathan did not share 
his fears. He loved and trusted David. But from that 
time forward Saul hated David, and finally drove him 
out as a fugitive. Instead of fighting the Philistines 
he spent all his strength chasing David from town to 
town and from cave to cave. Of course the Philistines 
took advantage of this quarrel between the two ablest 
men among their foes and came back with a strong 
counter attack. Saul's own life was forfeited and that 



EXPERIMENTS IN GOVERNMENT 75 

of Jonathan also in a disastrous defeat. The Philistines 
were masters once more. Saul's kingdom also had 
proved for the most part a failure. 

Study Topics 

1. Locate on the map the Midianites and the Phil- 
istines. 

2. Why would it have been a calamity for the world 
if the Philistines had conquered the Hebrews? 

3. Study carefully the parable of Jotham (Judges 9. 
8-15). In the light of this shrewd illustration, why is 
it hard to get good men to run for political office, even 
to-day? 

4. If we should undertake to have an entirely different 
kind of mayors, aldermen, governors, Presidents and so 
on, perhaps really good men would accept these offices. 
What kind? 



CHAPTER XIII 
THE NATION UNDER DAVID AND SOLOMON 

After Saul's death his son Ishbaal fled across the 
Jordan where the Philistines were not yet in control, 
and was accepted as king by the East Jordan tribes. 
More and more, however, the hearts of all the Hebrews 
turned toward the young David, who, under the Philis- 
tines, to whom he paid tribute, now became king over 
the tribe of Judah in the south. 

David as a Leader 

David was a born leader. Physically he was an 
athlete. With his sling he could throw stones straight, 
as Goliath, the Philistine giant, discovered to his sorrow. 
He had the gift of winning friends, even among those 
who might naturally have been his enemies, for example 
Jonathan and Michal, son and daughter of Saul, and 
Achish, the Philistine king. His followers with few ex- 
ceptions were deeply devoted to him, risking their lives, 
sometimes, to gratify his slightest wish. He was wise 
in his dealings with men, knowing when to be stern and 
when to be lenient. 

The nation united under David. — For a few years 
there was more or less of war between the followers of 
David and the followers of Ishbaal. David did not like 
this war. He had no heart for fighting his own kins- 
men, the people of the north. His method was to win 
them over without conquest. His chief difficulty in this 
was to restrain his own followers. Fighting always 
leads to more fighting. A bitter personal feud flamed 
76 







BRONZE HAMMER- 
HEAD 



VERY ANCIENT CANAANITE FLINT, 
FOR MAKING STONE KNIVES 




A FISH-HOOK 



BONE AWL HANDLE 





CANAANITE WHETSTONES CANAANITE OR HEBREW 

NAILS 

Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration Fund. 



UNDER DAVID AND SOLOMON 77 

up between Joab, David's chief general, and Abner, who 
was the real power in the other kingdom. David did 
not dare to punish Joab, yet he plainly showed his dis- 
pleasure. When finally Ishbaal himself was murdered 
in his sleep, David put the assassins to death. 

By this policy he pleased the people, both in the north 
and in the south. And after seven years of division the 
leading men of all the tribes came to David at Hebron, 
in Judah his headquarters, and made him king over 
the entire Hebrew nation, north, east, and south. 

David's victories. — Soon after this David declared 
his independence of the Philistines. War broke out 
and for a time it went against the Hebrews. But in 
the end they were able to rally their resources under 
their new leader, and inflicted two crushing defeats on 
their old enemies, which made them instead of the 
Philistines once and for all the masters of Canaan. 

From the Philistines David turned against the other 
petty enemies who had so often taken advantage of the 
weakness of the Hebrews. Already, while a vassal of 
the Philistines, he had thoroughly punished the Ama- 
lekites, in the deserts of the south; and now he gave 
the Ammonites and Moabites and other enemies on the 
east a taste of Hebrew warfare. Before many years 
passed they had all learned their lesson, and there was 
peace in Canaan. 

Progress in Civilization 

During all those years when the Hebrews were 
fighting for existence life in their little villages and 
towns had been anything but pleasant. Not only 
was there constant danger from human enemies and 
from famine, there was also a lack of the comforts 
and pleasures of civilized life. There were no books 



78 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

to read, no musical instruments to play on, and few 
opportunities for any kind of recreation. They had 
only coarse, rough clothing to wear, and coarse, ugly 
furniture for their homes. 

The development of commerce. — Now that peace 
and security had been achieved, David did much to 
make the daily lives of all his people happier. One 
way was through commerce. The great merchants of 
those days were the Phoenicians, the people of Tyre 
and Sidon, whose daring sailors steered their ships into 
every harbor on the Mediterranean Sea and even out 
upon the stormy Atlantic and up to the tin mines of 
Britain. 

Very wisely David made a treaty of friendship with 
Hiram, king of Tyre, and as a result Phoenician artists 
and artisans came down to Jerusalem and helped to 
beautify the city. Phoenician wares also began to be 
peddled in all the towns of Canaan: fine linen fabrics, 
such as the Hebrews did not know how to weave; 
beautiful jars and cups, such as Hebrew potters had 
not learned to fashion; jewels of silver and gold and 
precious stones, over which Hebrew maidens hovered 
with longing eyes. Soon one could see that the homes 
in these little towns of Judah and Benjamin and 
Ephraim were cleaner and better furnished, and the 
people were more neatly dressed. Commerce of the 
right kind is always a blessing. 

Education. — Better than fine clothes and jewels and 
furniture are the things that feed the mind. David 
himself was a skillful harpist, and no doubt this helped 
to make harp-playing popular. On one occasion the 
ark of Jehovah, the sacred chest which had been carried 
in the desert, was brought up to Jerusalem. It was 
accompanied by a chorus of singers and a band of 



UNDER DAVID AND SOLOMON 79 

instrumental players, "with harps and lyres and cym- 
bals." In the worship of the temple at Jerusalem 
music from this time on had an important place. And 
all up and down the land here and there, one could 
hear in humble homes the tinkle of harp strings; and 
boys and girls who liked music could learn to play. 

If not in David's time, then very soon after, the first 
Hebrew history books were written. These contained 
stories which had been handed down from generation 
to generation; stories about the beginnings of things; 
stories about Abraham and Moses and other early 
heroes. 

There were, of course, only a few copies of written 
rolls of stories, as compared with the millions of 
volumes which are constantly being turned out to-day 
by our great printing presses. But these few were 
much read, and those who read committed many of 
the stories to memory so that they could repeat them 
again and again in their home circles. In this way life 
grew more rich in pleasure and interest for many a 
Hebrew youth and maiden. 

David's Successor, Solomon 

After David's death his son Solomon was made 
King. He also encouraged commerce, both by land 
and by sea. His ships sailed down the Red Sea to 
India, and back, and over the Mediterranean Sea to 
Spain. They brought back, according to the author of 
First Kings, "gold and silver, ivory, and apes and 
peacocks." 

Solomon's folly. — Alas for the happiness of the 
people, Solomon was a different kind of a man from 
his father. Like so many other sons of good kings he 
was spoiled by too much luxury and too little dis- 



80 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

cipline. He had the reputation of being very wise, but 
in reality he was very foolish. His chief ambition was 
to have splendid palaces, and to make a great display 
of riches, like the kings of Egypt and Babylonia. 

In order to build these fine buildings and have great 
numbers of servants it was necessary to extort the 
money from his people by heavy taxes. They were 
also compelled to labor without pay in his quarries and 
elsewhere. So with all the increased wealth in the land 
and with all the seeming progress in civilization, the 
common people were really wretched — almost worse off 
than in the old days of disunion and confusion and fear. 

The disruption of the kingdom. — As a result of 
this cruelty and oppression, the northern tribes, after 
Solomon's death, rebelled against his son Rehoboam, 
who seemed likely to become even more of an oppressor 
than his father. The tribe of Judah in the south 
remained faithful to the family of David. So the 
nation was split in two parts, which were never 
reunited. 

If only all kings could be like David! He indeed 
was far from perfect; he was guilty of some very 
wicked crimes. But on the whole he came nearer than 
most kings to the best ideals of the Hebrews for their 
rulers: a man "from among thy brethren: . . . neither 
shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold, . . . 
that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, 
. . . and that he turn not aside from the command- 
ment, to the right hand nor to the left." 

Study Topics 

i. Look up Joab in a good Bible dictionary, and 
see how much David owed to this extraordinary man 
for his success. 



UNDER DAVID AND SOLOMON Si 

2. Read 2 Samuel 23. 13-17, as a good example of 
the devotion and loyalty David was able to awaken in 
his followers. 

3. With which did David do the more for the hap- 
piness of his people, with the sword, or with his harp? 

4. Why did Solomon grow up with selfish and extrav- 
agant habits and ideals? Read 2 Samuel ir, 12 for an 
explanation. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE WARS OF KINGS AND THE PEOPLE'S 
SORROWS 

The Hebrews did not greatly better themselves by 
the division of the kingdom and by the revolt of the 
northern tribes from Solomon's son. There were still 
kings both in the north and in the south. And all 
they cared about was glory and luxury for themselves. 

An Era of Perpetual War 

In order to get glory and wealth these kings made 
war on neighboring countries. For a long time there 
was war between the northern and southern Hebrews. 
There were long and very bloody wars between the 
Hebrews and the Arameans, whose kings ruled in 
Damascus. There were many wars between rival can- 
didates for the throne among the Hebrews themselves. 
Especially was this true in the northern kingdom 
where, during the two hundred years of its separate 
existence, there was a revolution on an average every 
thirty or forty years. In such cases all the members 
of the existing royal family would be assassinated and 
all persons who defended them or were suspected of 
sympathizing with them were put to death. After the 
murder of hundreds and sometimes thousands the new 
upstart conqueror would proclaim himself king. 

Famine and pestilence. — These constant wars not 

only brought wounds and death and sorrow to many 

homes, they also kept all the people poor and increased 

the deadliness of the other great historic curses of 

82 



THE WARS OF KINGS 83 

humanity, such as famine. The money and labor spent 
on war might have been used in terracing hillsides and 
fertilizing fields, so that in times of drought the crops 
would not wholly fail and starvation and death might 
thus have been pushed back a little further from the 
cottages of the poor. 

Wars also bring disease. In those days, epidemics 
of disease were frightfully common at best. They knew 
nothing about sanitation. Even in the most important 
cities, sewage and garbage were dumped in the streets. 
Leprosy was an everyday sight. Rats and other vermin 
swarmed everywhere except in the palaces of the rich; 
and when the soldiers came home from war, bringing 
with them typhus fever or cholera or the plague, the 
people died like flies. 

The dynasty of Omri. — Among the best of the suc- 
cessors of David and Solomon were Omri and his son 
Ahab, in the north. They made peace with the 
southern Hebrews in Judah and renewed the old alli- 
ance with Tyre. They built as their capital the beau- 
tiful city of Samaria. Ahab especially was greatly 
admired as a brave warrior and as a king who on the 
whole tried to serve his country well. Yet even Ahab 
was a despot. His own glory and wealth were to him 
of chief importance, and his people's needs and suffer- 
ings secondary. 

Back to the Desert 

Under these conditions it was natural that many 
people should look back with longing to the olden 
times, especially to the time of Moses, before the 
people had left the desert and settled in Canaan. All 
these newfangled ways, they said, are evil. They have 
brought us only trouble. Especially bad is the worship 



84 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

of these Baals instead of Jehovah, the God of our 
fathers. No doubt Jehovah is jealous and angry and 
has brought war and famine and pestilence upon us 
for just this reason. Many, indeed, who did not alto- 
gether object to the civilized customs of Canaan were 
uneasy in their minds because of the worship of the 
Baals. When Ahab made his alliance with the king of 
Tyre he had built, in Samaria, shrines to the Baal of 
Tyre. This was in accordance with the religious ideas 
of those days. When two countries made an alliance 
there was supposed to be an alliance between their gods. 
But the Hebrews had made a special covenant to wor- 
ship no other gods but only Jehovah. So there were 
many who were opposed to the worship of the Baals. 

The Rechabites. — One Hebrew clan known as the 
Rechabites, actually became nomads again and did all 
they could to persuade others to do the same. They 
gave up their houses and lived in tents. They pledged 
themselves to drink no wine or strong drink, and they 
were enthusiastically devoted to the worship of Jehovah 
only. Naturally they hated Ahab for bringing in the 
worship of the foreign gods of Tyre. They did much 
to cause the overthrow of the dynasty of Ahab in favor 
of a general named Jehu, who was pledged to drive 
out the Phoenicians and their gods. 

The Prophets 

There were also certain specially religious people, 
called prophets, some of whom saw the evils which 
were ruining the happiness of the people and fought 
against them. In the earliest days, these men who 
were called prophets were much like the soothsayers of 
other nations. They were supposed to have a special 
power of speaking revelations from God. Sometimes 



THE WARS OF KINGS 85 

they went into trances. Sometimes they caused excit- 
ing music to be played in their hearing. Most of them 
spoke what seemed likely to be popular with their 
hearers. For example, once when Ahab wanted to start 
a new war against Damascus, he sent for prophets and 
some four hundred were brought to him. "Shall we go 
to war or not?" he asked. All but one, knowing that 
Ahab's heart was set on the matter, answered, "Jehovah 
says, go to war, and he will give you victory." 

Micaiah. — The true prophets, however, were men of 
truth who worshiped Jehovah and waited for his teach- 
ing. Such a man was Micaiah. When Ahab asked 
him, "What do you say?" his answer was like the others. 
But his manner was so sarcastic that the king kept ask- 
ing him. He finally declared that Jehovah had revealed 
to him that the proposed expedition would end in 
disaster. For this Micaiah was thrown into a dungeon. 
But his prophecy came true. The Hebrews were de- 
feated, and Ahab himself was killed. 

Elijah. — The greatest leader in this movement back 
to the desert and to Moses, was a prophet named Eli- 
jah. He was like the Rechabites in his aims. He was 
dressed like a desert nomad and his whole life was given 
to the cause of the old desert religion. He had a very 
clear understanding as to what was best in that re- 
ligion. It was not merely because Jehovah might be 
jealous of other gods that Elijah fought against Baal 
worship, but also because Jehovah really stood for 
justice and righteousness as against the unrighteousness 
of the Baals. Elijah was not only a champion of 
Jehovah; he was a champion of the poor against their 
oppressors, a champion of the common people against 
the despotism of kings, as is so vividly and thrillingly 
illustrated in the story of Naboth's vineyard. 



86 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

Elisha. — Elijah's work was carried on after his death 
by another prophet named Elisha. He also seems to 
have been a friend of the common people. Many- 
traditions of his helpfulness to them are recorded in the 
second book of Kings. But his chief aim was to over- 
throw the dynasty of Ahab. It was Elisha who, with 
the help of the Rechabites, launched the revolution of 
Jehu. 

A disappointing outcome. — Jehu was really no 
better than Ahab. He was willing to drive out the 
priests of the Phoenician Baal, and he offered many 
sacrifices to Jehovah. But his chief ambition was for 
himself. Instead of bringing peace and justice to the 
poor, suffering, war-scourged people, his reign was hor- 
rible for its bloody killings. No one was safe from his 
murderous jealousy. 

There was needed something more than a mere 
revival of the "old time religion" of Moses. There 
had to be purer and nobler ideas of Jehovah, a better 
knowledge of the real nature of Jehovah and of what 
Jehovah demanded of men, and of the kind of worship 
which would please him. Till then there was little hope 
of happiness for men and women and little children. 

Study Topics 

i. Read 2 Kings 6. 24-30 for a vivid picture of the 
sufferings of the common people of Israel, as a result 
of constant wars. 

2. Read 1 Kings 20. 1-34 for some light on Ahab as 
an able king. What qualities are displayed by him, in 
the narrative of this chapter? 

3. Look up Rechabites in the Bible dictionary for 
a more complete narrative about them. 



THE WARS OF KINGS 87 

4. Is war more of a curse to the common people 
to-day than in ancient times, or less? Why? What 
classes still suffer most from war, the rich and powerful 
or the common people? 



CHAPTER XV 
A NEW KIND OF RELIGION 

Among all ancient peoples, including the Hebrews, 
a large part of religion was the burning of animal 
sacrifices on altars. Whenever a sheep or lamb or kid 
was slaughtered for food the blood was poured out on 
the sacred rock, or altar, in which the god was sup- 
posed to dwell. Afterward the fat was burned on the 
same rock. It was believed that the god in the rock 
drank the blood and smelled the fragrant odor of the 
burning fat. 

Whole burnt offerings. — On special occasions, such 
as a wedding, the birth of a child, the beginning of a 
war, or the celebration of a victory, the entire animal 
was burned on the altar. The first-born calves, or 
lambs, or kids of any animal mother were also regarded 
by the Hebrews as sacred and were burned as whole 
burnt-offerings to Jehovah. 

Sacrifices in Canaan 

After the Hebrews settled in Canaan they adopted 
other kinds of sacrifices. Grains and fruits were offered 
as well as animals. Wine and oil were poured on the 
altars. Baked cakes were burned. One sheaf from 
every harvest field of wheat or barley was supposed 
to be waved back and forth before an altar of Jehovah. 
This was a sort of religious drama by which Jehovah 
was thought to receive a share of the grain. 

Religious feasts. — In Canaan also the Hebrews 
observed certain religious festivals, which corresponded 
to the early, middle, and late harvest seasons; they were 



A NEW KIND OF RELIGION 89 

called respectively, the "Feast of Unleavened Bread," 
the "Feast of Weeks" (or Pentecost), and the "Feast 
of Tabernacles." All of these were joyous occasions 
somewhat like our Thanksgiving Day, and at all of 
them each family offered to Jehovah some part of the 
products of their fields. 

Priests and Their Duties 

The altars where these sacrifices were offered were in 
charge of a special class of men, the priests. In the 
early days, in Canaan, there was a little temple, or 
shrine, outside each town and village with one or more 
priests in charge of it. Sometimes wealthy men had 
private shrines and hired their own special priests. It 
was the business of these men to know just how a 
sacrifice must be offered in order that it might be 
pleasing to Jehovah. There were certain rules and 
regulations handed down from generation to generation. 
There were certain kinds of animals which could not 
be offered. It was important to know just what parts 
of each victim were to be burned. The various meal 
offerings had to be prepared in a certain way. Yeast 
could not be used, nor honey. 

The increasing number of priestly rules. — As the 
centuries passed more and more rules were worked out 
by the priests. This was their whole business in life, 
and, of course, they made much of it. More and more 
different kinds of offerings were invented; for example, 
incense, which was the burning of herbs which made a 
sweet-smelling smoke. The books of Exodus, Leviticus, 
and Numbers, especially Leviticus, are largely composed 
of these rules for sacrifices. The animals had to be 
washed, killed, and skinned, according to certain direc- 
tions. The blood had to be disposed of according to 



9o HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

strict rule — some placed in the horns of the altar, some 
on the priests, some on the worshiper bringing the offer- 
ing, and so on. And the more there were of these rules, 
the more priests there had to be to remember and 
enforce them. Thus it came about that all too fre- 
quently sacrifices came to be the chief thing in religion. 
Religion meant sacrifices and not much else. 

The Reign of Jeroboam II 

Jeroboam II, who reigned over the northern king- 
dom of Israel for some forty years, beginning about 
B. C. 790, was in some ways like Ahab, who lived a 
century earlier. He was victorious in war and brought 
peace and prosperity to his nation. These years of 
peace brought little happiness, however, to the common 
people of Israel. They had already become so poverty- 
stricken during the long years of petty but cruel wars, 
under the earlier kings since Solomon, that they were 
practically at the mercy of a small class of nobles and 
wealthy merchants who grew richer all the time while 
the people grew poorer. 

Evil days. — These rich men used false weights and 
measures. In buying wheat from the farmer they would 
use heavy weights, and get more than was right; in 
selling to the poor of the cities they used light weights, 
and so gave out little for much. They corrupted courts 
and judges, so that no poor man could get his rights. 
They charged enormous rates of interest for the money 
which the poor were obliged to borrow. All over the 
land the mass of the people were living in hovels and 
selling their sons and their daughters into slavery to 
keep from starving, while the rich men and their 
families lived in luxury and in wasteful, extravagant 
display. 



A NEW KIND OF RELIGION 91 

None of this shameful injustice seemed to weigh 
heavily on any man's conscience, for they were careful 
to keep up all the sacrifices to Jehovah. And was not 
Jehovah showing his pleasure by granting them these 
long years of peace and prosperity? They forgot the 
old lessons of Jehovah's justice which the nation had 
learned from Moses. Even Moses, according to their 
traditions, had given laws about sacrifices and offerings. 
These seemed to be the essential thing. So they kept 
on offering up costly sacrifices at their great temples 
and shrines, with stately and gorgeous ceremonials, and 
thought to themselves, "How pleased Jehovah must be!" 

Amos 

There came one day to King Jeroboam's own shrine 
at Bethel a man in the garb of a shepherd and speaking 
in the name of Jehovah, like the prophets. But what 
strange words are these which he utters? 

"I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will 
take no delight in your solemn assemblies. 
Yea, though ye offer me your . . . meal- 
offerings, I will not accept them: neither 
will I regard the peace-offerings of your 
fat beasts. Take away from me the noise 
of thy songs ; for I will not hear the melody 
of thy viols. But let judgment roll down 
as waters, and righteousness as a mighty 
stream." 

What this shepherd prophet was proclaiming was a 
religion in which burnt-offerings, or sacrificial cere- 
monies of any kind had little or no place, but which 
expressed itself in justice and righteousness toward 
one's fellow men. What Jehovah wants is not sacri- 



92 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

fices at all, he said, but to stop cheating the poor: to 
throw away your false balances, and set free the slave. 
Amos' dire forebodings. — In many addresses, as 
reported in the book which bears his name, with bitter 
and thrilling eloquence Amos tried to drive home this 
great message to the hearts of his fellow countrymen. 
He warned them that unless they heeded, disaster 
would come to the nation. For as surely as Jehovah 
demanded justice, so surely would he punish injustice. 
Terrible are his pictures of the calamities with which 
the guilty Israelites would be visited. Nor did he 
appeal wholly to fear. There is now and then a plead- 
ing note in Amos. Honest and burning indignation 
and threats are indeed most common in the pages of 
his book; yet listen to this: 

"Thus the Lord God showed me: and, 
behold, he formed locusts in the begin- 
ning of the shooting up of the latter 
growth. . . and . . . when they made an 
end of eating the grass of the land, then 
I said, O Lord God, forgive, I beseech 
thee: how shall Jacob stand? for he is 
small." 

There speaks the shepherd pleading for his little 
sheep — "How can Jacob stand, for he is small?" 

The Results of Amos' Words 

Amos' mission to the northern kingdom seemed to 
be a failure. He had come up from his sheep tending, 
in his home in Tekoa, in Judah, because he felt burning 
within him a message for his people. But he soon went 
home. The chief priest at Bethel drove him out. 
And apparently the people did not care. No doubt 



A NEW KIND OF RELIGION 93 

even the poor people in whose cause Amos had so elo- 
quently spoken were shocked by his words. "What, 
are not our sacrifices holy and pleasing to Jehovah? 
Would he have us stop offering up burnt-offerings? 
That is almost blasphemous." 

Bread upon the waters. — Yet there were some who 
listened. And the proof is found in the existence of 
the book of Amos in the Bible. Some one cared 
enough to preserve and copy the first manuscript of 
Amos' sermons and to make still other copies. Another 
proof is the fact that within that same century three 
other supremely great religious teachers caught up his 
great idea of a new kind of religion and repeated it in 
new and wonderfully convincing ways. Of these other 
prophets we shall learn more in the chapters to follow. 

Study Topics 

1. Glance over the book of Leviticus, also the latter 
part of Exodus, and the book of Numbers. How im- 
portant did the Hebrews evidently consider the carry- 
ing out of sacrifices? 

2. Look up in the Bible dictionary Jeroboam II 
and Amos. Find out more (1) about the times in 
which Amos lived and (2) about his personal history 
and character. 

3. Read as much as you can in the book of Amos: 
chapters 1 and 2 and 7 and 8 are most important for 
our study. 

4. Are religious ceremonies ever substituted to-day 
for the religion of justice and right? If so, explain how. 



CHAPTER XVI 
A NEW KIND OF WORSHIP 

Amos seemed to think of sacrifices and burnt-offer- 
ings as mere formalities which distracted men's atten- 
tion from the thing of real importance, namely, just 
and righteous dealing between man and his neighbor. 

There was another prophet who lived a little later 
than Amos. Perhaps as a youth he heard Amos speak. 
This was Hosea, who probably came from Gilead east 
of the Jordan. This man saw even deeper into the 
truth of religion than Amos, and his messages wonder- 
fully completed and rounded out the great true words 
which the older prophet had so bravely spoken. 

The Good and the Evil in the Old Sacrifices 

The old religion of sacrifices was by no means wholly 
evil. When a family in those days sat down to a 
happy feast and gave some of everything in gratitude 
to Jehovah, God really was there, not in the sacred 
rock, but in their love for one another and for him. 
When they poured out libations and burned fat on the 
altar, God was indeed glad, not because of the smell of 
the smoke or because he enjoyed drinking the blood, 
but because his children were grateful. 

Wrong ideas of God. — On the other hand, these 
sacrifices, when misunderstood, tended to give people a 
wrong idea of God as one who was greedy for food and 
gifts. There was the greater danger of this wrong idea 
because of the character of the priests who were sup- 
posed to represent Jehovah. Many of them were very 
greedy indeed. The story of Eli's sons in i Samuel 2. 
94 



A NEW KIND OF WORSHIP 95 

12-17 is an illustration. The priests were supposed to 
receive for their own personal support a part of all the 
gifts which were brought to the shrine. But the sons 
of Eli made it the rule that whatever came out of the 
meat kettle on a three-pronged fork stuck in by the 
priest should belong to him. Very often, it is plain, 
the priest got everything. And naturally the people 
came to think of Jehovah as like his priests — as a Being 
who cared only for gifts. 

A worship based on greed. — The worship of such a 
god, or of a god who was thought of as being of such 
a character, would, of course, be very far from the love 
and adoration which we Christians are taught to offer 
to our Father, and was really far from the kind of wor- 
ship advocated by devout Hebrews. It would be a 
sort of bargain-hunting worship: the people to bring 
gifts of the fat of lambs and libations of blood and wine, 
and the god to give them in return good crops of wheat 
and oil, and figs and grapes, and an abundance of silver 
and gold. If Jehovah would give these things, then 
worship Jehovah. If other gods and Baals would give 
more than Jehovah, worship them. 

In short these sacrifices, as Hosea saw, were a kind of 
worship, and no worship is a mere formality, but is a 
vast influence for good or for ill. Because of these 
wrong ideas the sacrifices had come to be more and 
more an influence for evil. And you cannot have a 
righteous and happy human family in which men are 
just and kind to each other, without a true worship, 
growing out of a true idea of God. 

Hosea's Experience and Message 

This young man from the lovely, grassy plains and 
valleys east of the Jordan had had an experience which 



96 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

taught him much. He was by nature a man with a 
loving heart. He loved his native land with a burning 
patriotism. By and by there came to him, as to most 
young men, the experience of a passionate love for a 
beautiful girl. All the deep wells of tenderness in Hosea's 
loving heart were hers, and she became his wife. For 
a time they were happy; then little by little it became 
clear that this woman, Gomer, did not really love him 
as he loved her. She only wanted his money. And 
when she could get nothing more from him, or could get 
more elsewhere, she left him. She was like the woman 
in Kipling's poem, "The Vampire," "she did not care." 
It hurt Hosea. For a time the light of the whole world 
seemed darkened for him. 

Reading a meaning in sorrow.— Then like a flash 
the thought came to him; Jehovah is just like me in 
this regard. He wants love, not gifts, from his people, 
a love which on their part does not fawn for other gifts 
from him in return, like the cupboard love of kittens 
purring for cream. He loves his people Israel just as 
I love Gomer. That is why he asks us not to worship 
these other gods, the Baals; not because he is jealous 
but because he is good. He wants us to learn a dif- 
ferent kind of worship altogether — a worship which is 
not prompted by greed but by love. 

With his whole soul aflame, Hosea poured these new 
ideas into the ears of his countrymen. 

"I desire mercy, and not sacrifice, and 
the knowledge of God more than burnt- 
offerings." 

These great words were quoted by Jesus himself in 
one of his controversies with the Pharisees; they are 
one of the supreme utterances of human literature. 



A NEW KIND OF WORSHIP 97 

Storm Clouds on the Horizon 

This new insight of Hosea helped him to interpret 
hopefully the troubles which at that time were coming 
thick and fast upon his people. The forebodings of 
Amos were coming true. The kings of Assyria were 
ambitious. They had set their hearts upon a great 
Assyrian empire extending from Babylonia to Egypt. 
For more than two centuries each new king at Nineveh 
sent his conquering armies farther west and south. 
Already in Hosea's day they had more than once 
invaded northern Israel and had taken away tribute. 
And the leaders of the nation did not have the brains 
or the character to avoid a conflict with this merciless 
and resistless foe. 

Jehovah loving even in punishment. — Amos had 
declared that Jehovah would surely punish his people 
because of injustices and wrongs which they were in- 
flicting on one another. Hosea agreed, but was able 
to go further, and say that in these very punishments 
which were now coming Jehovah was still showing not 
his anger but his love. He was punishing in the hope 
that his children might learn their lesson and return 
to him in love. 

Fall of the northern kingdom. — The nation, as a 
nation, seemed to pay no attention to Hosea's plead- 
ings. They went right on living their selfish and greedy 
and lustful lives. And in B. C. 721, as a result of pro- 
voking the Assyrian king Shalmanezer to a fresh attack, 
the land was again invaded and the city of Samaria 
was captured and sacked. Thousands of the northern 
Hebrews were carried away as exiles to other lands and 
never returned. The northern kingdom was a failure. 
The religious ideals and dreams of Abraham and Moses 



98 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

had not yet been fulfilled. The common people had 
had little opportunity for happiness or growth in 
knowledge and goodness. But the southern kingdom 
still existed. And many a disciple of Hosea, some of 
them carrying scraps and rolls of papyrus on which his 
sayings were copied, fled to Jerusalem, and there sowed 
the seed of his great message of a God not only of 
justice but of love. 

Study Topics 

i. Read Genesis 4. 1-15. In this story of Cain and 
Abel is there any hint as to how even an animal sacri- 
fice might be true worship? 

2. Look up Hosea in the Bible dictionary, or in the 
chapter on Hosea in Cornill, The Prophets of Israel. 
Find out more about the times in which he lived and 
about his personal history. 

3. Read what you can in the book of Hosea. This 
is rather hard reading, but chapter n is not very dif- 
ficult, and gives a good idea of Hosea's style. 

4. Which kind of prayer counts more for the hap- 
piness of all, prayers for personal advantage, or prayers 
of love and gratitude to our Father? 



CHAPTER XVII 
JEHOVAH NOT A GOD OF ANGER 

There are other mischievous delusions in regard 
to the character of God which we find among all races 
in the early childhood of their history. They think of 
their gods not only as greedy but as having arbitrary 
whims and as often falling into fits of unreasonable and 
cruel anger. 

Early Ideas of Jehovah's Anger 

The Hebrews were not entirely free from these wrong 
notions in their conception of Jehovah. Even in the 
story of Moses, for example, there is a strange narrative 
which declares Jehovah "met Moses and sought to kill 
him" and would have killed him except for the cere- 
monial rite which his wife Zipporah performed. 

The story of the ark and the men of Beth-she- 
mesh. — Similar to this is the story of the wanderings 
of the ark in i Samuel. This ark, or sacred chest, was 
regarded as the special dwelling place of Jehovah in 
Canaan, his permanent home supposedly being on 
Mount Sinai in the desert. When the ark was captured 
by the Philistines a plague broke out in every city where 
it was taken. Finally it was placed on a new cart with 
specially chosen cows to draw it, and sent back toward 
the Hebrew border, and in the course of time it reached 
the Hebrew town of Beth-shemesh. And we read that 
"the sons of Jeconiah did not rejoice with the men of 
Beth-shemesh, when they looked upon the ark of Je- 
hovah. So he smote among them seventy men." 1 

1 1 Samuel 6. 19, Greek version. 

99 



ioo HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

Sacrifice as a Propitiation of Jehovah's Anger 

It was just this idea of Jehovah as subject to fits of 
anger which prompted many of the old sacrifices. It 
was not merely that Jehovah was greedy and could be 
bribed with gifts to grant favors, but also that he was 
dangerous when his anger was stirred and hence sacri- 
fices were necessary to placate him. 

Human sacrifices. — An even darker side of the pic- 
ture is the existence of human sacrifices, even among 
the Hebrews, in the worship of Jehovah. The pathetic 
story of Jephthah's daughter is the most conspicuous 
example. This warrior had promised to sacrifice to 
Jehovah whatever first came out to meet him, if he 
returned victorious from war. Alas, it was his own 
daughter! Yet he did not dare to break his vow. 

The story of Abraham and Isaac also proves that 
human sacrifices to Jehovah were not unknown among 
the Hebrews. In this story Jehovah finally intervenes 
and allows Abraham to offer up a ram instead of his 
own son. Yet the story implies the belief that Jehovah 
might demand of a father that he kill his own son and 
burn him on the altar. These ideas continued to be 
believed even down to the time of the prophets, Amos 
and Hosea, and the others about whom we will study. 

The Prophet Micah and His Message 

About the time that Hosea was finishing his sad career 
in the north another prophet in the south caught up the 
torch of light and truth. His name was Micah. Like 
the two great men who preceded him, Amos and Hosea, 
his heart was stirred to pity and indignation by the 
sufferings of the poor and by the injustice and luxury 
of the rich and powerful. In plain, direct, and fiery 



JEHOVAH NOT A GOD OF ANGER 101 

sentences he denounced these evils and foretold pun- 
ishment. Because of these things, he declared that 
"Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of 
the house as the high places of a forest." 

Micah was especially bitter against those men who 
made religion their business, and used it as a means 
of oppressing the poor — the prophets who proclaim a 
holy war against those "who put not into their mouths," 
that is, those who do not give them presents. The 
priests, Micah says, "teach for hire, and the prophets 
thereof divine for money." 

Micah's great message. — It was, of course, the ex- 
istence of superstitious fears in the hearts of the people 
which made it possible for the priests and the prophets 
to join with the rich nobles in preying upon them. 
"You give me this or that," "You pay for this sacrifice 
or that — or I will call down a curse upon you from Je- 
hovah. Some dreadful misfortune will come upon you." 
With one great word whose throbbing pity for the 
ignorance and sorrow of men makes it another of the 
great utterances of human lips, Micah cut the root of 
all such fears. Jehovah is not that kind of a God, he 
declared. He does not break out in fits of rage. He 
does not need to be wheedled back into good nature 
by costly offerings, perhaps even sometimes with the 
costliest offerings of all, one's own darling children. 

"Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, 
and bow myself before the high God? 
Shall I come before him with burnt-offer- 
ings, with calves of a year old? Will the 
Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, 
or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? 
shall I give my first-born for my transgres- 



102 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

sion, the fruit of my body for the sin of my 
soul? He hath showed thee, O man, what 
is good; and what doth the Lord require of 
thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, 
and to walk humbly with thy God." 

Study Topics 

i. Read the stories of the ark, referred to in this 
chapter. See i Samuel 6. 1-20; 2 Samuel 6. 1-9. What 
other way of explaining the death of Uzzah and of the 
men of Beth-shemesh occurs to you rather than the 
anger of Jehovah? In the case of the men of Beth- 
shemesh, read 1 Samuel 5, with its clear indications of 
contagious disease. 

2. How has modern science helped to free mankind 
from the curse of superstitious fear? 

3. Look up Micah in the Bible dictionary, and find 
out all you can about his personal history and work. 

4. Are superstition and wrong religious beliefs ever 
made the means of extortion and oppression to-day? 
If so, how? 



CHAPTER XVIII 
ONE JUST GOD OVER ALL PEOPLES 

The Message of Isaiah 

The destruction of the northern kingdom by the 
Assyrian armies struck fear into the hearts of the 
Hebrews of the sister kingdom in the south. No one 
had dreamed that such a thing could happen. It is 
true that from the beginning of the terrible onrush the 
Assyrians had been almost irresistible. All the little 
nations which had stood in their way had been swal- 
lowed up. 

Moreover, the prophets Amos and Hosea had plainly 
foretold that some such calamity would be sent upon 
Israelites by Jehovah on account of their sins. But 
very few of them believed these brave and lonely 
preachers of the truth. "Jehovah send the Assyrians 
against us! Why, that is absurd! We are Jehovah's 
people, and he is our God. What has he to do with 
the Assyrians? He may chastise us, but not by send- 
ing foreign armies to conquer us. What would he do 
if we should be conquered? He would have no nation 
to worship him." So they reasoned. 

Jehovah too weak to protect his people? — When, 
therefore, the Assyrians actually did come marching 
down from the Euphrates River, hundreds of thousands 
of them with their gleaming armor and their multi- 
tudes of horses and war chariots, and besieged and cap- 
tured the city of Samaria, leaving it a ruin, most of 
the Hebrews, north and south, were sick with fear and 
bewilderment. For them with their false notions it 
could mean only one thing: their God, Jehovah, was 
103 



104 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

too weak to protect his people against the greater gods 
of Nineveh. The Assyrians said to them: 

"Let not thy God in whom thou trusteth 
deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not 
be given into the hand of the king of As- 
syria. Behold, thou hast heard what the 
kings of Assyria have done to all lands, 
by destroying them utterly: and shalt thou 
be delivered? Have the gods of the 
nations delivered them? . . . Where is 
the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, 
and the king of the city of Sepharvaim?" 

Against such taunts as these, the Hebrews, with 
their mistaken beliefs, could bring no answer. 

The Craze for Foreign Gods 

With their faith in Jehovah breaking down there was 
a great running here and there after other gods and 
strange religions. Instead of trusting quietly in Jeho- 
vah's watchful care many of the people resorted in 
their terror to soothsayers and mediums, to "wizards 
that chirp and mutter." Jerusalem seems to have 
become almost as full of them as the cities of the 
Philistines, which had always been famous for their 
fortune-tellers and necromancers. 

Alliances with other nations. — Another favorite 
way of seeking safety was through alliances with other 
nations and their gods. According to the beliefs of 
that age, when two nations made an alliance their gods 
were included in it. To overcome the Assyrians, 
therefore, it would be necessary to make an alliance 
with some other nation whose gods were very powerful. 
So the people of Jehovah began to "strike hands with 



ONE JUST GOD OVER ALL PEOPLES 105 

the children of foreigners." The rulers of Jerusalem 
set about making coalitions with the other nations 
of western Asia: with the Philistines, the Syrians, the 
Phoenicians and, most of all, the Egyptians. The gods 
of the Egyptians were supposed to be especially strong: 
Osiris and Isis were the chief of their deities and they 
were believed to be the gods of the underworld — of 
Sheol, or Hades, the abode of the dead. So when 
these poor ignorant politicians at Jerusalem finally did 
succeed in arranging for an alliance with the crafty 
and deceitful kings of Egypt they said to themselves: 
"Now we are safe. The Assyrians cannot hurt us now. 
We have made a covenant with Death." 

The Statesman-Prophet, Isaiah 

It is good to know that among many misguided 
people there was one man whose wisdom of the eternal 
Truth of God made him stand like a rock while the 
multitudes ran to and fro in uncertainty and despair. 
Isaiah was a comrade and co-worker in spirit with the 
prophets named in the three preceding chapters, Amos, 
Hosea, and Micah. It is by no means impossible that 
he had listened to the sermons of Hosea, and thus 
caught from him his inspiration. He must certainly 
have known Micah personally, for they lived and 
preached only some twenty-five or thirty miles apart — 
Micah in the village of Moresheth and Isaiah in the 
city of Jerusalem. 

Isaiah's message. — Isaiah's special message to his 
people was that all the nations of the world are subject 
to the righteous rule of the God of righteousness, Jeho- 
vah; and that the attempt to find safety for their nation 
by alliances with other nations and their gods was 
utterly foolish and wrong. Undoubtedly this message 



106 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

found a response in the hearts of those who remained 
faithful to Jehovah. 

This message grew out of the great and splendid 
ideas as to Jehovah's character which Amos and his 
successors had been working out: that he was a God of 
righteousness and love, not greedy for burnt-offerings, 
not flaring up into fits of anger, and needing to be 
soothed and mollified by peace offerings; but a God 
who asks only for justice and fair-dealing among men, 
and for true love in response to his own. Isaiah 
repeated these great truths to his own people in Jeru- 
salem in glowing words whose eloquence is unsurpassed. 
For example: 

"Wash you, make you clean; put away 
the evil of your doings from before mine 
eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek 
judgment; relieve the oppressed, judge the 
fatherless, plead for the widow. . . . 

"I will turn my hand upon thee, and will 
thoroughly purge away thy dross, and will 
take away all thy tin : and I will restore thy 
judges as at the first, and thy counselors as 
at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be 
called the city of righteousness, the faith- 
ful city." 

Isaiah's originality. — The prophets and leaders who 
came before Isaiah had not fully grasped the idea of 
a God of all nations instead of one. Amos and Hosea 
had only caught glimpses of it. Before their time, 
even the greatest of the leaders of Israel had thought 
of Jehovah as for the most part the God of Israel only. 
But now in the midst of the terror of cruel armies and 
ruined cities and smoking fields, when no one knew 



ONE JUST GOD OVER ALL PEOPLES 107 

what to believe or where to look for comfort and pro- 
tection, this great Isaiah was able to realize that Jeho- 
vah, the God of righteousness and justice and love, 
was the God of all humanity. There were no limits to 
his realm. All tribes and kingdoms and races were 
subject to his holy law. The Assyrians are but "the 
axe that he hews with." His providence rules over all. 
Whatever wicked men may say or do, his will is done 
in the end. His plans are brought to pass. 

Isaiah's faith. — With such a God as this in whom 
to trust, Isaiah was able to show himself to his country- 
men as a wonderful example of the power of faith. 
When they were panic-stricken he was calm. "Thus 
saith the Lord God, ... In returning and rest shall ye 
be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your 
strength." Do not rush off to other nations and other 
gods. They will fail you. Most likely they will self- 
ishly betray you. Only do the will of the just God, 
who rules the nations, and quietly trust him. Do that 
and no evil can befall you. He is all- wise and all- 
powerful, and he is good. 

So at last, the religion of the one All-Father, which 

we call monotheism, was born in the mind and heart of 

a man, and began to be clearly proclaimed by human 

lips. 

Study Topics 

1 . Look up ' Tsaiah' ' in the Bible dictionary. 

2. Read Isaiah 6. 1-8 for his own story of the 
experience which led him to be a prophet. 

3. What parts of this story in Isaiah 6. 1-8 express 
the idea of one great God of all nations? Look up 
"Monotheism" in the dictionary. 

4. Read chapter one or chapter five of the book of 
Isaiah for a good example of his eloquent preaching. 



CHAPTER XDC 
A REVISED LAW OF MOSES 

Amos and the great prophets who followed him met 
with the same fate as many other pioneers — only a 
few of their hearers heeded their words, or even under- 
stood them. But four great leaders in one century — 
Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah — could hardly fail to 
make some real impression on the minds and lives of 
their nation. Isaiah was perhaps the most influential, 
partly because the others before them had prepared 
the way and partly because he himself lived and 
preached to the people during a long period of time — 
more than forty years. 

Isaiah's disciples. — Another reason why Isaiah 
exerted so great an influence was that he organized 
little groups of his disciples into circles for study. 
These groups met together from time to time, and 
read aloud the sermons of Isaiah and the other prophets, 
and talked about how to apply them to their lives. 
We can see them seated in a circle in the evening on 
the floor of one of those little homes opening into a 
narrow Jerusalem street. There would be a candlestick 
in the center, or an upturned bushel measure, with a 
candle on top of it. The circle would be composed 
of men; but on the outside eagerly listening would 
be women and children. One of the men in the circle 
would be seated by the candle reading from a roll of 
papyrus on which were written the sermons of one of 
the prophets. 

108 



A REVISED LAW OF MOSES 109 



The Evil Days of Manasseh's Reign 

It is well that these reading circles were started, 
for they kept alive the new truth of the reformer- 
prophets during the reign of a bad king, Manasseh. 
This man's father, Hezekiah, had favored the prophets. 
But Manasseh, who became king when Isaiah was an 
old man, was opposed to all these new ideas. Most 
of the people of Judah probably agreed with him. 
They still clung to the belief that the one sure way for 
a nation to be prosperous was to offer sacrifices to the 
most powerful gods. Now the kingdom of Judah, in 
spite of all their worship of Jehovah, was still subject 
to the empire of Assyria. Great sums had to be paid 
every year as tribute. "What fools those prophets 
are!" men said, as they talked together in the streets. 
"See how much stronger the Assyrian gods are than 
Jehovah!" "Last month I had to pay ten shekels for 
the tribute!" "If we want to prosper, we must wor- 
ship the gods of Assyria." 

Manasseh's persecution. — Manasseh therefore pro- 
ceeded to introduce the worship of the moon-god, and 
the sun-god, and other deities of Nineveh. He even 
set up altars to these divinities in the temple of Jeho- 
vah at Jerusalem. When the disciples of the prophets 
spoke against all this he had them seized and killed, 
until he had "filled Jerusalem with innocent blood." 
Many a good man who had listened to the reading of 
Isaiah by candlelight in one of those reading circles now 
had to hide himself in some closet or cistern from the 
soldiers of Manasseh. There is a tradition that the 
aged Isaiah himself was put to death during this per- 
secution. 

Not all of those who opposed Manasseh were 



no HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

killed, although they were finally compelled to keep 
silence. Those little study circles still held meetings in 
secret to read and talk and pray; and they kept look- 
ing forward to a time when a different kind of a man 
would be king, and when they would be able once 
more to lead the people into the way of justice and 
true worship. 

In one of these little groups a remarkably wise plan 
was suggested. Let us take the laws which have been 
handed down to us from Moses, it was said, and work 
them up into a sermon. Every one reverences Moses. 
Let it include the farewell address which Moses is said 
to have spoken to his people just before he died, and 
put into it all the laws of Moses, and let us show 
what they really mean. And by and by when Ma- 
nasseh is dead we may be able to read it to the people, 
and perhaps they will listen. 

The Written Law 

The new law book—Deuteronomy. — So they wrote 
the new book, and it is preserved in our Bible as the 
book of Deuteronomy. We find in it all the old laws 
which had been handed down from early times, and 
which were called the "laws of Moses. " And we find 
on every page sentences which show the influence of 
the great prophets, from Amos to Isaiah. Isaiah's 
influence is perhaps the most plainly seen, especially 
his teaching that the people should worship Jehovah 
alone as the one ruler of the world. In Deuteronomy 
also we find a very solemn and emphatic command- 
ment bidding us love and worship only Jehovah, the 
one true God. This is the commandment which Jesus 
called the first and greatest of all. 



A REVISED LAW OF MOSES in 

"Hear, O Israel. The Lord our God is 
one Lord ; and thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God with all thine heart, and with all thy 
soul, and with all thy might." 

Such a law as this of course forbade all those cove- 
nants with other gods which Isaiah denounced. 

Laws helping the oppressed. — All the prophets had 
been on the side of the poor and the weak, against 
the rich and powerful who oppressed them. The 
authors of the book of Deuteronomy tried to shape 
this new law so as more fully to protect the poor. 
They made stronger all the older laws which were 
intended to make life a little easier for the weak and 
unfortunate, and they added others: for example, laws 
protecting debtors against greedy and merciless cred- 
itors, and laws forbidding the extremely harsh penalties 
which poor men were sometimes made to suffer by rich 
judges. 

There was an ancient law requiring that any Hebrew 
who had fallen into a state of slavery on account of 
debt must be set free after seven years. The new law 
book included this law, and added that the master must 
not send him away emptyhanded at the end of the 
seven years, but must give him food and clothes 
enough to keep him alive while he looked for a chance 
to work and earn money for himself. The new law also 
protected fugitive slaves from other countries. They 
were not to be returned to their owners. 

A compromise. — All of the four reformer-prophets 
whom we have studied had condemned the offerings 
and animal sacrifices of the old worship, not only 
because of the idolatry and other heathen and immoral 
practices connected with them, but also on the ground 



ii2 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

that Jehovah did not want sacrifices anyway, but only 
justice and love. 

But the authors of the new law did not abolish 
sacrifices altogether. They provided that all the small 
shrines, called "high places," such as at Hebron or 
Gibeon, and all up and down the country should be 
destroyed, but that sacrifices should be offered at 
Jerusalem and only there. The old-time religious feasts, 
such as the Passover, could no longer be celebrated at 
home. All the people must come up to Jerusalem for 
them. No doubt it was thought that this would help 
to put down idolatry. 

The Adoption of the New Law 

Manasseh reigned fifty-five years. It was a long, 
weary time of waiting for the disciples of the prophets. 
The new law book was put away in one of the closets 
of the temple for safe-keeping. The years went by and 
most of the men who helped to write it died. At last, 
however, the end came for Manasseh. After a short 
period his grandson, Josiah, who was only eight years 
old, became king. The boy's older relatives and friends 
were all against the ideas of old Manasseh and on the 
side of the prophets. Little by little the principles of 
the prophets were put in practice. Among other things, 
orders were given to tear out from the Jerusalem temple 
the images and altars to the sun-god and the moon- 
god and other emblems of Assyrian worship. The 
temple was also cleaned and renovated. While the 
carpenters were at work the new law-book was dis- 
covered in the chest where it had been hidden and was 
brought to the young king and read before him. 

Josiah's reforms. — Josiah was deeply impressed and 
gave orders that the reforms called for by the new 



A REVISED LAW OF MOSES 113 

law should be carried out. Officers went all up and 
down the villages and towns of Judah tearing down 
the little temples, or "high places," where so much 
heathenism had been practiced. And the people were 
told that several times each year they were to bring 
their sacrifices to the temple at Jerusalem. Those were 
also good days for the common people. There was 
a king now who "judged the cause of the poor and the 
needy." Many a poor debtor, when his crops failed, 
appealed to the king's court in Jerusalem and he him- 
self and his children were saved from slavery and their 
home from ruin. 

The reform only lasted a few years — some twelve or 
thirteen — and then King Josiah was killed in battle, 
and much of the old heathenism and greed and injustice 
came back again in a flood. But the memory of the 
good days did not quickly fade. It was the first great 
triumph of the teachings of the prophets — the men who 
kept alive the true ideals of Abraham and Moses. 

Study Topics 

1. Read any part of Deuteronomy 1-5. Select any 
passages which seem to you truly eloquent. 

2. Read Deuteronomy 12. 10, 11. What place is 
referred to by the author, when he writes, "The place 
that Jehovah your God shall choose, to cause his name 
to dwell there"? 

3. In the light of the history in this chapter, which 
is the more likely to change human history, a battle- 
ship or a Bible class? Explain. 



CHAPTER XX 
A PROPHET WHO WOULD NOT COMPROMISE 

The new law-book seemed a great victory. Yet 
sometimes victories are more dangerous than defeats. 
They lead to self-satisfaction. This was certainly the 
case with this victory of the authors of Deuteronomy. 
The people were careful to offer up their sacrifices at 
the temple in Jerusalem, and very few offerings were 
brought to the old village shrines. But the real kernel 
of the truth which the prophets had proclaimed was in 
danger of being forgotten. This was the truth that no 
forms of sacrifice, no solemn religious feasts are of any 
account in the sight of God unless accompanied by 
simple justice and brotherly kindness between neigh- 
bors. This was the state of affairs against which one 
more great reforming prophet was raised up to fight — 
Jeremiah, of the little town of Anathoth, five miles 
north of Jerusalem. 

A Conversation in a Jerusalem Street 

To understand clearly what Jeremiah's message was 
and why it was needed let us listen to a conversation 
between two citizens of Jerusalem. This one is im- 
aginary. But there must have been many, in reality, 
very similar to this. 

First citizen: Did you hear of my good fortune? 
I have just got a fine piece of ground for almost 
nothing. 

Second citizen: How? 

First citizen: I had loaned some money to an old 
114 



ONE WHO WOULD NOT COMPROMISE 115 

farmer, and made him pledge me his field as security. 
Last summer the Babylonian soldiers came through that 
valley and burned all the wheat and barley stacks. So 
the old man couldn't pay back the loan. He tried to 
tell his story to King Jehoiakim, but the king drove 
him from the palace. So I went and took his field. 

Second citizen: What would the prophets have said 
to a transaction like that? Did not Isaiah call down 
woes from Jehovah on those who took away poor men's 
fields? 

First citizen: I have just offered a sacrifice to 
Jehovah. 

Second citizen: I suppose, then, it is all right. But 
did not the prophets speak against sacrifice, unless one 
remembered justice and mercy? 

First citizen: Yes, but they were speaking of the old 
sacrifices on the "high places," at the village shrines. 
Everyone knows they were heathen shrines and hateful 
to Jehovah. I offered my sacrifice at the temple yonder, 
just as we are told to do in the law of Moses, which 
King Josiah's servants found in the temple. 

Look! Why is all that crowd gathered over there 
in the temple yard? Let us go and see what is hap- 
pening. I heard some one say, that a certain Jeremiah 
who calls himself a prophet, was to speak there to-day. 
All my friends who have heard him say that he is a 
false prophet. 

(They reach the edge of the crowd. Jeremiah is 
standing on the steps of the temple, addressing the 
people, as follows:) 

"Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The 
temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, 
the temple of the Lord, are these. For if 



n6 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

ye thoroughly amend your ways and your 
doings; if ye thoroughly execute justice 
between a man and his neighbor; if ye 
oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, 
and the widow . . . then I will cause you 
to dwell in this place, in the land that I 
gave to your fathers, from of old even for- 
evermore. Behold, ye trust in lying words, 
that cannot profit. Will ye steal, murder, 
and commit adultery, and swear falsely, 
. . . and come and stand before me in this 
house, . . . and say, We are delivered; 
that ye may do all these abominations? Is 
this house, which is called by my name, 
become a den of robbers in your eyes?" 

Jeremiah's Message of a Heart Religion 

It is clear that Jeremiah was fighting the same old 
battle that Amos and the other prophets had fought 
against a religion of mere empty ceremonies. But the 
battle had grown even harder, because the old false 
practices had been accepted as though they were just 
the kind of religion that Amos had preached. The 
people said, "We are keeping the kw of Jehovah," 
and so they were satisfied with themselves. 

The law to be written on the heart. — Jeremiah 
saw that this mistake had come from relying too much 
on a written law. Something more than an outward 
law was needed before men could succeed in living 
together as brothers. It is so easy to keep the letter 
of the law, or to think one is keeping it, while we lose 
the spirit of it. What is needed, Jeremiah said, is 
a changed heart. Again and again he cried to the 
people, "Oh Jerusalem, cleanse thy lieart" And in one 



ONE WHO WOULD NOT COMPROMISE 117 

of the great chapters of the Bible, the thirty-first of the 
book of Jeremiah, he looks forward to a time when 
Jehovah and his people should be bound together in a 
new covenant — not a covenant written on tables of 
stone like the one which Moses wrote at Sinai: 

"But this is the covenant that I will 
make . . . after those days, saith the Lord. 
I will put my law in their inward parts, and 
in their hearts I will write it." 

The apostle Paul saw this promise fulfilled by the 
love which Jesus Christ awakens in men's hearts, so 
that they gladly and eagerly do the will of God. On 
account of this prophecy of Jeremiah our Christian 
Bible is called the New Covenant, or (from the Latin) 
the New Testament. 

Jeremiah and the Babylonians 

In Jeremiah's time (a decade or so before and after 
B. C. 600) the Babylonians had taken the place of the 
Assyrians as the rulers of the world. There was a 
powerful king, Nebuchadrezzar, on the throne of 
Babylon. And the existence of the kingdom of Judah 
depended on submission to him. But, just as in 
Isaiah's time a century before, there was now a party 
in Jerusalem who were constantly plotting to rebel 
against the Babylonians, hoping for help from Egypt. 

Jeremiah as a patriot. — Jeremiah had no sympathy 
with them. He loved his native land deeply and 
tenderly. But until the people were worthy of liberty 
he was sure Jehovah would not give it to them. 

Again and again they proved their unworthiness. 
Once when the Babylonian armies were knocking almost 
at the gates of Jerusalem they remembered that law 



u8 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

about Hebrew slaves, which had been made even more 
strict in the new law, Deuteronomy. According to this 
law, no Hebrew could be kept in slavery longer than 
seven years. So in their fear of the Babylonians these 
rich nobles solemnly set free a great number of slaves 
whom they had been illegally keeping in slavery. A 
few days later the hostile army, for some reason or 
other, withdrew. And within a month all these slaves 
who had been set free were seized and reenslaved. How 
Jeremiah denounced this hypocrisy! 

The Destruction of Jerusalem 

If Jeremiah's advice had been followed, the people 
of Judah would have been spared a world of sorrow. 
But the leaders of the kingdom seemed bent on drag- 
ging the whole nation into ruin. In B. C. 597, Jeru- 
salem was captured and some ten thousand of the 
inhabitants were carried away as exiles to Babylon. 

Even that lesson was not enough. Within a few 
years the new king, Zedekiah, and his nobles again 
rebelled against Nebuchadrezzar. Jeremiah protested 
and was called a traitor. Many times his life was 
threatened; for a long period he was kept in a filthy 
dungeon, and almost perished from hunger. But 
friends saved him. Very soon, in B. C. 586, the city 
came to the horrible end which Jeremiah had so 
patiently tried to ward off. The city was captured by 
Babylonian soldiers and burned. Thousands were car- 
ried away as exiles. Thousands more fled to Egypt 
and to other foreign countries. Only the poorest 
farmers were left to till the soil. David's kingdom 
and dynasty were ended. 

Jeremiah himself was not taken to Babylon, but 
remained in Palestine. According to tradition, his last 



ONE WHO WOULD NOT COMPROMISE 119 

days were spent in Egypt, with a Hebrew colony there. 
His life had been spent in keeping alive the soul of true 
religion in an age when few would listen. He is one 
of the great heroes of uncompromising truth. 

Study Topics 

1. Look up the story of Jeremiah in the Bible 
dictionary. 

2. Read Jeremiah 1. 1-9, for a taste of his style of 
writing. 

3. One man sacrifices to a heathen god; another 
tries to bribe Jehovah with a sacrifice as though he 
were like the heathen gods : 

a. Which is worse? 

b. Which would the authors of Deuteronomy have 
considered worse? 

c. Which would Jeremiah have considered worse? 



CHAPTER XXI 
KEEPING THE FAITH IN A STRANGE LAND 

Twice within twelve years, first in B. C. 597, and 
again in B. C. 586, the Babylonians took great com- 
panies of Hebrews as exiles from Jerusalem to Babylon. 
Each time there must have been in the line of march 
some twenty-five thousand men, women, and children — 
an army which, marching eight abreast, would stretch 
at least five or six miles. 

These must have been sorrowful processions, espe- 
cially the last of the two. For months they had suffered 
the horrors of a besieged city. Then had come the 
break in the walls, the screams of frightened women 
and children, the heaps of corpses in the streets, and 
the black smoke and red glare of burning buildings; 
then the hasty setting out on the long road to Babylon. 
Some of them perhaps were able to buy asses to carry 
the little children and a few of their belongings. But 
most of them had to trudge along on foot, fathers and 
mothers carrying the babies, and leaving behind them 
all their possessions except what could be gathered into 
a towel or a blanket. For a month or six weeks they 
tramped. If anyone fell sick, there was no time to take 
care of him. He must drag along with the rest or fall 
by the wayside until he either recovered or died. 

The Settlement in Babylonia 

When they reached the land of their captors they 
were not made slaves, but were allowed to make their 
home together in settlements on land set apart for them. 



KEEPING THE FAITH 121 

In these colonies they probably worked as tenant- 
farmers on the estates of Nebuchadrezzar's nobles. 
In the prophetic book of Ezekiel, who was among these 
exiles, we read about one of these Jewish colonies by 
the river, or canal, called Chebar (or in Babylonian 
Kabaru), which means the Grand Canal. 

The attractions of Babylonian life. — What the 
Babylonians hoped was that these people would forget 
that they were Hebrews and become Babylonians, just 
as immigrants from Europe become Americans. This 
is exactly what happened in many cases. At first, of 
course, the Hebrews were bitterly homesick. The land 
of Babylonia was as flat as a floor. The Hebrews 
longed for the lovely hills and valleys of their native 
land. 

By the rivers of Babylon, 

There we sat down, yea, we wept, 

When we remembered Zion. 

Upon the willows in the midst thereof 

We hanged up our harps, 

For there they that led us captive required 

of us songs, 
And they that wasted us required of us 

mirth, saying, 
Sing us one of the songs of Zion. 
How shall we sing the Lord's song 
In a strange land? 

But the years went by, and they had time to look 
about in the new country. They found it full of 
opportunities for money-making. The soil, watered by 
hundreds of canals from the Euphrates and Tigris 
Rivers, was wonderfully rich. Everywhere there were 
prosperous towns and cities with great brick buildings, 



122 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

beautifully decorated with sculpture, and thronged with 
merchants. Ships laden with wheat and dates and with 
Babylonian rugs and mantles and other beautiful articles 
sailed up the rivers, or out to sea toward India. Many 
Hebrews, or Jews (that is, Hebrews from Judaea), 
became merchants. In their own land they had been 
chiefly a nation of farmers. The reputation of the Jews 
for cleverness in trade began with these experiences in 
Babylon when hundreds of Jewish boys obtained posi- 
tions in great Babylonian stores or banks, and by and 
by set up for themselves as merchants. Among the 
Babylonian contracts on clay tablets coming down to 
us from this period are many Jewish names. 

The Temptation to Forsake Jehovah 

These young Hebrew merchants found themselves in 
a net-work of foreign religious customs. When a cus- 
tomer signed a contract it was proposed that he offer 
a sacrifice to the god Marduk, that the enterprise might 
prosper. There were religious processions and feast 
days in which everyone joined, just as we hang out 
flags on the Fourth of July. Foreigners from other 
lands joined in these rites and thought nothing of it. 
Furthermore, some of these captive Jews thought that 
their Hebrew God, Jehovah, had not protected them 
from these mighty Babylonians. Surely, the Baby- 
lonian gods were the stronger, and one should pay 
them due reverence. 

Memories of the prophets. — On the other hand, 
even the dullest of the Jews must have begun to under- 
stand that the religion of their prophets was a different 
kind of religion altogether — not a religion, but true 
religion; and that Jehovah was not like the bargaining, 
jealous gods of the other nations, but was God, with 



KEEPING THE FAITH 123 

a capital G, the one righteous Creator and Ruler of the 
world. 

Moreover, the prophets who had taught them to 
think of Jehovah in this way had again and again 
declared that just this calamity of exile would come 
upon them if they as a nation continued to disobey 
Jehovah's just laws; and what they had foretold had 
come to pass. The prophets must have been right. 
Their teaching must be true. 

Hebrews in other foreign lands. — There were 
probably almost as many Hebrews in Egypt at this 
time as in Babylonia. Indeed, even before the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem the constant wars on Canaan had 
compelled great numbers of them to seek for peace and 
comfort for themselves and their wives and children in 
Egypt, in Damascus, and even in far-away Carthage 
and Greece. The Jews to-day are scattered all over 
the world. This began to be true of them from the 
time of the destruction of Jerusalem. 

These Jews who permanently made their homes in 
foreign countries were called Jews of the Dispersion. 
And they all faced the same temptations as the exiles 
in Babylonia. Their problem was how to be loyal to 
their nation and their religion. Great numbers of them, 
like Daniel and his friends in the stories related in 
the book of Daniel, did refuse to sacrifice to heathen 
gods and held fast to the nobler faith which they had 
brought with them from Jerusalem. This was not easy. 
Not only were they tempted to go with the crowd and 
worship the gods of the land; they were also uncertain 
just how to worship Jehovah. They could not offer 
sacrifices to him. Jerusalem was a thousand miles 
away, and the temple there was burned. Should they 
build a new temple for him, in Babylon? It was not 



i2 4 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

certain whether that would be lawful. The Jews in 
Egypt did build a temple to Jehovah. But no others 
seem to have been able to do this. 

Keeping the Sabbath 

There were some religious customs, however, which 
could more easily be transplanted. One was the Sab- 
bath Day. In the earlier centuries the Hebrews had 
observed the day of the new moon with special sacri- 
fices, and also, to some extent, the other days when the 
moon passed from full to first quarter, then to the 
second, then to the third — in other words, every seventh 
day. There was in the days before Moses no thought 
of resting from labor on these days, except as might 
have been necessary in order to offer up the special 
sacrifices. 

The Sabbath and the new law of Deuteronomy. — 
One of the kindly changes which the new law of Deu- 
teronomy introduced was to make the Sabbath a rest 
day for slaves and all toilers. On the Sabbath "thou 
shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy 
daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, 
nor thine ox, nor thine ass, . . . that thy manservant 
and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou." 

In Babylonia and other foreign lands faithful Jews 
were especially careful to keep the Sabbath by resting 
from all their work. No one else did so, and the cus- 
tom marked them as Jews. When a Babylonian would 
propose to buy a wagon load of wheat on the Sab- 
bath the Jew would say, "I cannot sell on that day; 
it is a Sabbath day to our God." Boys and girls were 
not allowed to play with their Babylonian playmates on 
the Sabbath. Such experiences helped them to remem- 
ber that they were Jews. They thought of it also as 



KEEPING THE FAITH 125 

an act of respect to Jehovah. It took the place of 
animal sacrifices. As the time went on there grew up 
rules and regulations in regard to Sabbath-keeping 
which became more and more strict and elaborate. 

Prayer and Public Worship 

Another religious custom which can be practiced any- 
where is prayer. It must have been a great and happy 
discovery to many a homesick Jew when he found that 
even though the temple at Jerusalem was far away, yet 
in his own room "by the river Chebar" he could kneel, 
or even in the street he could for a moment close his 
eyes and breathe out a prayer to God and find in it 
fresh strength and hope and courage. 

The synagogue. — The weekly Sabbath rest also 
made it possible for the Jews to meet together on that 
day for prayer and worship together. The reading cir- 
cles which Isaiah had organized, and out of which 
probably came the law-book Deuteronomy, were con- 
tinued in Babylonia, and the Sabbath morning, after- 
noon, or evening was a convenient time of meeting. 
They would gather in some private house and study 
the law and the writings of the prophets. Then they 
would pray. Those who were the most learned would 
read and they and others would pray aloud. 

By and by special buildings were set apart called 
synagogues. As time went on these synagogue services 
rather than the services in the temple, became the most 
important part of the Jewish religion. Our morning 
and evening worship in the Christian Church grew out 
of the synagogue service. It was the beginning of that 
worship of which Jesus spoke when he said: The hour 
cometh when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem 
shall ye worship the Father. . . . But . . . the true 



i26 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in 
truth. 

Study Topics 

i. Read 2 Kings 25, or Daniel 1. 

2. Mention some other temptations which must 
have come to the Jews, in Babylon, besides the tempta- 
tion to worship idols. Consider, for example, their new 
experiences as traders. 

3. What are some good ways in which we may be 
helped to be true to God to-day when we are away 
from home. 



CHAPTER XXII 
UNDYING HOPES OF THE JEWS 

As the Jewish exiles were led away to Babylon they 
asked themselves over and over again, "Is this the 
end of our nation?" It seemed like the end. Their 
capital city lay in ruins. Their king was blinded and 
in chains. All the most intelligent people in the coun- 
try were being led to a distant land, from which most 
of them would probably never return. The iron rule 
of the Babylonians was everywhere supreme. 

There are other nations and races whose people might 
not have cared so much even if this had been the end 
of their national existence. But the Hebrews from 
the beginning were proud of their race and ambitious 
for its glory. They believed that it had been promised 
to Abraham, their ancestor, that they should become 
a great nation in their land of Canaan. This hope 
had grown stronger and stronger. Stories of the great- 
ness of King David were handed down from fathers to 
their children. To the best men and women among 
them the great teachings of such prophets as Amos and 
Isaiah were even more worthy of pride. "We have a 
knowledge of the true God," they said, "such as no 
other nation has. Surely there is a great future before 
us." And now all these hopes seemed lost forever. 

The discouragement of the poor people in Canaan. 
— Those who had been left behind in Canaan when the 
Babylonians conquered the land were even more hope- 
less and wretched. The exiles soon made a place for 
themselves in the busy, prosperous land of Babylonia. 
127 



128 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

They earned money and lived in comfort. But the 
farmers on the stony hills of Judaea suffered untold 
hardships. Not only were they poor; they were also 
harassed by bands of robbers. The city of Jerusalem, 
which had protected them, lay in ashes. The Baby- 
lonian governor did not help them. He was there only 
to collect taxes and tribute. So the old enemies, the 
robber tribes from the desert, came in and burned and 
murdered and stole as they pleased. It is not strange 
that many of these poor people felt that all was over 
for the Hebrew or Jewish nation. Many of them ceased 
to worship Jehovah and became heathen, like the other 
tribes around Canaan. 

Voices of Comfort and Hope 

It was not easy, however, to crush the courage of the 
Jews. Out of the darkness of those days we hear a 
whole chorus of voices, all of them saying: "This is not 
the end of everything for us. Jehovah has not for- 
gotten his promises to our ancestors. He will bring 
back the exiles from Babylon, and from other distant 
lands whither they have escaped, and will rebuild Jeru- 
salem in all its beauty, and will restore the glory of 
our nation in the land of Canaan." 

The prophecies in Isaiah. — Many of these voices 
are found in short passages scattered through the writ- 
ings of the older prophets. Two of them are in Isaiah 
9 and n. 

"The people that walked in darkness 
have seen a great light: ... the rod of 
his oppressor thou hast broken . . . For 
all the armor of the armed man in the 
tumult, and the garments rolled in blood, 



UNDYING HOPES OF THE JEWS 129 

shall even be for burning, for fuel of fire. 
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son 
is given; and the government shall be 
upon his shoulder, and his name shall be 
called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, 
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." 

"In other words," he reasoned, "Jehovah will free us 
from the tyrannical Babylonians, give us an ideal king, 
who shall be wise and just and faithful, and under 
whose rule we shall see no more of the horror and 
cruelty of war." 

Ezekiel's prophecies of hope. — Away off in Baby- 
lonia itself Ezekiel helped to keep alive the hopes of 
the exiles. Even though the nation is dead, he told 
them, Jehovah can bring it to life. It will be as though 
the dry and bleaching bones in some valley where a 
battle was long ago fought should suddenly come to- 
gether as human skeletons, and warm living flesh should 
grow upon them once more. Ezekiel worked out a 
kind of constitution for the new nation and the temple 
when these should be restored. 

All these brave leaders helped the Jews to believe in 
themselves as a people. They listened to these men as 
they spoke in their synagogues in Judaea and in Baby- 
lonia. They handed from one to another the rolls on 
which their words were written. And ever the children 
heard from their mothers these hopes which kept them 
from being completely discouraged: "We are Jews. 
The Jewish nation is not going to be destroyed. 
Some day the exiles in Babylon will return to the old 
country. We will have a king of our own. And we 
will build the great nation which Jehovah promised 
Abraham." 



i 3 o HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

The Beginnings of a Restored Judah 

In the year B. C. 538, the Babylonian empire was 
conquered by Cyrus, the Persian. There was scarcely 
any resistance on the part of the Babylonians. And 
one of his first acts in the conquered city was to issue 
a proclamation that captives and exiles from other lands 
might return if they wished. It was the chance for 
which the Jews for forty years had been hoping. Now 
at last they could go back over that thousand-mile 
journey, up the Euphrates, across to the coast land, and 
down to Canaan. But alas! too many years had 
passed. Most of those who had come to Babylon as 
grown people and who remembered Canaan as home 
were now dead. Most of the living Jews had grown 
up in Babylon and were comfortably settled there. Yet 
some did return, and from time to time others kept 
returning. These men who thought enough of then- 
nation to go back to the home land and help it in its 
weakness and poverty almost always became leaders. 

The new temple. — It may have been a group of 
these leaders returned from Babylon who started the 
rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem in the year B. C. 
520, just sixty years after the old temple of Solomon 
was burned by the soldiers of Nebuchadrezzar. There 
were two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, who did 
much to stir up the people to this work. Some of 
their words are preserved in the Old Testament books 
which bear their names. These men may have been 
returned exiles. The new building was erected on the 
same old foundation and was finished in four years. It 
was dedicated amidst the shouts of the people, while old 
men and women, who as children had seen the former 
temple before it was destroyed, wept for joy that at 



UNDYING HOPES OF THE JEWS 131 

last a house had been rebuilt for Jehovah. It seemed 
like the beginning of better times for their nation. 

The Greatest of the Prophets of Hope 

Yet the years that followed the building of the new- 
temple were sad and disappointing. The better days 
did not seem to come. The walls of Jerusalem still lay 
in ruins. The robber tribes still made their cruel raids. 
The poor people suffered most, for they were oppressed 
and plundered by the richer men even of their own 
people. "What has become of Jehovah?" men asked. 
"Where are his promises to Abraham? Why does he 
allow even his most faithful servants to be oppressed — 
those who do not oppress others; who obey his just 
laws, and who are merciful to their brothers?" 

The great unknown. — About this time there came 
to the people of Israel a new message from one of the 
greatest prophets of all those whom God has raised 
up in any nation. He is sometimes called the "Great 
Unknown," because we to-day know nothing about his 
personal life, not even his name. His great messages 
to his fellow Jews are found in the latter part of the 
book of Isaiah, beginning with chapter 40. The first 
verse of this chapter strikes the keynote of comfort 
which runs through all the chapters to follow. 

"Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith 
your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jeru- 
salem, and cry unto her, that her warfare 
is accomplished, that her iniquity is par- 
doned ; that she hath received of the Lord's 
hand double for all her sins." 

With words that sing like a beautiful instrument of 
music he tells the people that God has not forgotten 



i 3 2 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

them; that the scattered exiles will be brought back to 
the home land ; that the ruined city, Jerusalem, will be 
rebuilt and made more lovely than before; that a rule 
of justice will be established; and that the blessings of 
peace and happiness will come to all. 

The greatness of service. — Even better than these 
promises of happiness, our unknown prophet helped 
the people to understand more clearly what it means 
to be a great nation. He did not believe that the God 
of heaven and earth would make a favorite of any one 
nation. Instead he taught that Jehovah had chosen 
Israel to be a servant nation for him, to serve all other 
nations by teaching them about the true God. 

"I will also give thee for a light to the 
Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation 
to the end of the earth." 

He explained in this way even the undeserved suf- 
fering which many of the best people of Israel were 
enduring. Israel thus became a type of Him who was 
"despised and rejected of men." To be chastised and 
afflicted and oppressed is not so hard to bear if it is 
all a part of Jehovah's plan for men. The ideal in 
the Old Testament becomes a reality in the New. 

So for the first time the idea came into the world 
that Abraham's dreams of a greater and nobler nation 
and God's promises to Abraham, Moses, David and the 
rest were not for the Hebrew people only, but for all 
men; that beginning with this little nation God was 
making a better world; a world of love, instead of sel- 
fishness and hate; of happy work and play, instead of 
misery and hopelessness and war. 

Of course very few of the prophet's hearers under- 
stood him. But more and more the Jews were filled 



UNDYING HOPES OF THE JEWS 133 

with the thought that somehow God had a great future 
for them. Boys and girls, as they grew up, wondered 
if they might not become leaders, a new Moses, a 
second David, or Elijah, to play some part in bringing 
the great future which God had promised. 

Study Topics 

1. Read Isaiah 40 or 49 for a taste of the writing 
of the "Great Unknown." 

2. Read Ezekiel 2. 1-7, or 14, for a similar taste 
of this prophet's message and style. 

3. Which of these two prophets do you consider the 
greater? 

4. Is there evidence to-day that the Jews still 
believe in a restored nation? 



CHAPTER XXIII 
THE GOOD DAYS OF NEHEMIAH 

About seventy years after the rebuilding of the 
temple at Jerusalem a committee of Jews went to 
Persia to seek aid for their distressed country from 
their more prosperous kinsfolk. In the Persian capital, 
Susa, they found a man named Nehemiah, who was 
cup-bearer and personal adviser to the king of Persia. 
He was a man of good sense, of kindly sympathy, and 
of great ability — just the man to help them. They told 
him how the walls of the city of their fathers had 
never been rebuilt in all these years since the Baby- 
lonians had captured it, and how the poor people suf- 
fered from robbers and oppressors, who took advantage 
of their helplessness. 

Nehemiah's Great Adventure 

All this was news to the young man. They did not 
have newspapers and magazines in those days, and 
people in one part of the world knew little about what 
was going on in other parts, even those near by. The 
stories told by his brother Jews made Nehemiah sad, 
and his sadness showed in his face even when he came 
before the king. This was dangerous, for a part of his 
duty was to keep the king in a cheerful humor. But 
his Majesty was not angry, but asked him "Why are 
you so sad?" Nehemiah answered by telling him the 
story of his native land and its pitiable condition; and 
then and there with a prayer in his heart he asked the 
king to give him a leave of absence, and to permit him 
134 




■v-i> 





REMAINS OF WALLS OF THE CANAANITE CITY, MEGIDDO 




PART OF CITY WALL AND GATE, SAMARIA 



Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration Fund. 



THE GOOD DAYS OF NEHEMIAH 135 

to go to Jerusalem and help the people there to rebuild 
the walls. 

Why walls were greatly needed. — All cities in 
those days were surrounded by walls. These were 
necessary, because no government had yet been strong 
enough to rid the country of the bands of robbers who 
made their dens in almost every cave or lonely valley. 
Not only the road between Jerusalem and Jericho, of 
which Jesus tells, but on almost all roads one was in 
danger of falling among thieves. In the deserts on the 
edge of Palestine whole tribes lived by robbery, and 
were large enough and well enough organized to defeat 
good-sized armies. Hence no city was safe unless it 
was well fortified. 

Nehemiah's request was granted by the king of 
Persia. So, with letters to the governors of the prov- 
inces through which he was to pass, the young leader 
set out, perhaps on camel-back, to Jerusalem. After 
looking about and seeing for himself the condition of 
the city, and the work which needed to be done, he 
called the people together and proposed that they 
rebuild the walls. His energy carried the day. They 
answered, "Let us rise up and build." 

The Walls Rebuilt 

The task which Nehemiah had undertaken was a 
difficult one. Jerusalem is situated on a ridge, with 
deep valleys on all sides except the north. The walls 
did not need to be high where there were cliffs or 
steep slopes falling away into the valley. But along 
the entire north side, and in many other places also, 
they had to be at least thirty feet high, and fifteen or 
twenty feet thick at the base. The stones and bricks 
for this were buried in the rubbish where the old walls 



136 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

had been battered down. They had to be dug up and 
dragged into their places, stone by stone. Most of the 
work had to be done by hand, although they perhaps 
used asses with basket-paniers for carrying lime and sand. 
They may have constructed small cranes for lifting the 
heaviest stones, but they had very little machinery. 

Difficulties overcome. — For a time the work went 
merrily forward. But soon their rapid progress became 
known and those who had prospered because of their 
weakness became jealous. There was a certain San- 
ballat, governor of Samaria, who wanted to keep Jeru- 
salem helpless so that Samaria might always be the 
chief city in the land. They were willing that the 
poor people of Jerusalem should go on suffering from 
the attacks of cruel bandits if only they themselves 
could keep on growing richer. He and others did all 
in their power to stop the work. They organized a 
force of men and planned to attack and kill the builders. 
But Nehemiah had his workers carry their swords as 
they worked, and arranged for signals at which all 
should rush to the help of any part of the wall which 
might be attacked. He also kept the people working 
at top speed from early morning every day "until the 
stars appeared," and cheered them on when they were 
tired and discouraged. 

Their enemies tried all kinds of tricks; they threat- 
ened to report to the king of Persia that Nehemiah 
was organizing a rebellion; they plotted to seize Nehe- 
miah himself. But the man was too clever for them. 
The walls kept steadily going up and up. The gates 
were set in place and locked; and at last, fifty-two 
days, or just a little more than seven weeks after the 
first stone was laid on the old foundations, the work 
was done. 



THE GOOD DAYS OF NEHEMIAH 137 

Once more they could lie down in peace behind pro- 
tecting walls, and not tremble at the thought that fierce 
robbers might swoop down upon them before the morn- 
ing light to plunder, burn, and murder. Once more 
they could begin to live their lives in peace and plan 
for the future. Traders could bring their goods into 
the city without fear of losing everything. Men could 
buy and sell and prosper. 

Nehemiah's Reforms 

But security from outward foes is not enough to 
bring happiness to a people. Even before the walls 
were finished some of the poor people among the Jews 
came to Nehemiah with a bitter complaint against 
their rich neighbors. "We are starving," they said. 
Others said: "We have mortgaged our fields in order 
to borrow money that we may buy food for our chil- 
dren. And now because we cannot pay these men take 
our fields from us, and even sell our sons and daughters 
into slavery." It was the old story of greed and 
oppression. Those who were stronger and more fortu- 
nate used their advantage to oppress their brothers and 
extort from them all that they could pay. So a few 
men were able to live in luxury, even in those troubled 
days, while the great majority suffered in poverty and 
misery and despair. 

The great massmeeting. — In that little country of 
Judaea it was possible to gather into an assembly, per- 
haps in the open space in front of the temple, men from 
almost every country village and city street. Such an 
assembly Nehemiah called and laid before it the com- 
plaints he had received. He told the rich nobles to 
their faces: "You exact usury, every one, of his 
brother. The thing you do is not good. ... I pray 



i 3 8 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

you leave off this usury." The nobles had nothing to 
say. Every one knew that what Nehemiah said was 
true. Then he went on: "Restore to them their fields, 
their vineyards, their olive-yards, and their houses, also 
the grain, the new wine, and the oil that you exact 
from them." Then said they, "We will restore them." 

And Nehemiah made them take oath to carry out 
their promise. "Also I shook out my lap," Nehemiah 
writes in his memoirs, "and said, So God shake out 
every man from his house, and from his labor, that 
performeth not this promise; even thus be he shaken 
out and emptied. And all the congregation said 'Amen/ 
and praised the Lord. And the people did according 
to this promise." 

The beginnings of a just and happy nation. — 
Nehemiah could not stay long in Jerusalem. But he 
was able to make another visit a few years later. And 
for a time at least his ideas were carried out. During 
this time there was happiness among the people. They 
all had something to eat and clothes to wear. All 
fathers and mothers had a little time to play with 
their children after the close of work each day. All 
who could read had a little time to study the rolls of 
the prophets and the law of Jehovah. And all were 
brothers. More than ever before the old dreams, 
handed down from Abraham, had begun to come true. 

Study Topics 

i. Look up the story of Nehemiah in the Bible 
dictionary. 

2. Read Nehemiah 1-2, or 5. 1-6, 16. 

3. On the right side of the line, below, write what 
in your judgment corresponds to the men and conditions 
of Nehemiah's time. 



THE GOOD DAYS OF NEHEMIAH 139 

Nehemiah's Time Our Own Time 

a. Walls around the city. 



b. Robbers, and enemies 
such as Sanballat. 

c. The poor and enslaved 
people. 

d. Nehemiah. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

HYMN AND PRAYER BOOKS FOR THE NEW 
WORSHIP 

We have seen that a new kind of public worship 
of God had been growing up among the Hebrews, be- 
ginning with the time when the prophets began to con- 
demn the misuse of the old animal sacrifices. The new 
worship consisted chiefly of prayer. We have seen how 
the exiles in Babylon began to come together on the 
Sabbath days to study the law and other sacred writ- 
ings, and also for prayer. Those exiles who returned to 
Judaea brought this custom with them. Special build- 
ings, called synagogues, were erected in Judaea as well 
as wherever there were faithful Jews in other lands. 
These synagogues rather than the temple gradually 
came to be the real home of the Jewish religion even 
in Jerusalem itself. The chief part of the synagogue 
service was always the study of the Scriptures. But 
prayer was also given an important place. 

In the temple also, after it was rebuilt, public prayer 
was regarded as very important — even if not quite so 
important as the regular burnt-offerings. There were 
also prayer-hymns, sung by the people and by special 
choirs. 

Making hymnals and prayer books. — In our 
churches, to-day, we could scarcely conduct our services 
without the hymn books scattered through the pews. 
In some denominations there is a prayer book, which 
is considered just as necessary as the book of hymns. 
In those ancient synagogues and in the temple service 
the Jews found such books needful. Had we gone into 
140 



HYMN AND PRAYER BOOKS 141 

one of their meetings, we would not indeed have found 
a book waiting for us in the seat or handed to us by 
the usher. The art of printing was unknown. Books 
could not be purchased cheaply by the hundred. 
Each copy had to be written out by hand with pen 
and ink on a roll of papyrus. But we would probably 
have discovered that the leader of the worship had a 
book of prayers and hymns before him. He would 
read them, line by line, each Sabbath for the others to 
memorize. To make this task of memorization easier 
many of the Jewish hymns were written in acrostic 
form — that is, each line or stanza began with a dif- 
ferent letter in the order of the Hebrew alphabet. 

Hymn and Prayer Books in the Bible 

Our book of Psalms is a collection of smaller col- 
lections of just such hymns and prayers to be used 
in worship. Each one of these smaller collections came 
out of some synagogue or group of synagogues, or was 
prepared by the members of one of the choirs who 
led the worship in the temple. By studying these we 
may learn something about how they were used. 

The Prayers of David. — This was the title of one 
of these smaller books. It contained Psalms 2 to 41, 
and some others of our book of Psalms. All of these 
are headed in our Bible, "A Psalm of David." These 
words, in the original Hebrew, mean "dedicated to 
David." The last page in this smaller book is perhaps 
now found where our Psalm 72 comes to an end with 
the words, "The Prayers of David the Son of Jesse are 
Ended." This sentence corresponded, in the little 
book, to the words, "The End," in our modern books. 
It was copied in what is now our book of Psalms, even 
though it is no longer "the end." 



i 4 2 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

These "David" hymns were probably written not 
only by David, but as well by members of a synagogue 
of worshipers who were poor and oppressed. There 
are a great number of references to "enemies." "De- 
liver me not over unto the will of mine adversaries." 
"Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of 
mine enemies." These people probably lived in the 
days before the reforms of Nehemiah, when there were 
indeed many enemies both outside of Jerusalem and 
within the city, heathen robbers, and rich oppressors 
of their own race, men who cheated them and who 
mocked them when they prayed for help to Jehovah. 

The Pilgrim Songs. — Another very different hymn 
book embedded in our book of Psalms is one which we 
may call the "Pilgrim Songs." It is found in chapters 
1 20 to 134 of our Psalter. All of these psalms have 
the title, "A Song of Ascents." This probably means 
a song to sing on the ascent to Jerusalem. These 
come from the happy time after Nehemiah when the 
city was safely protected by walls. Because of this 
blessed safety it was now possible for the people once 
more to go on pilgrimages to the great annual religious 
feasts as prescribed in the law-book of Deuteronomy. 
Before the walls were rebuilt such gatherings of pil- 
grims with their gifts would merely have been an invi- 
tation to robbers. But now the custom of pilgrimages 
was renewed, and they came to be among the hap- 
piest events of the year in the lives of Jewish men 
and women and older boys and girls. 

The journey to Jerusalem was usually made in large 
companies or caravans for the sake of protection. For 
the roads outside of Jerusalem were by no means safe. 
And naturally in such a crowd of folks from the home 
village there would be much singing. These "Pilgrim 



HYMN AND PRAYER BOOKS 143 

Songs" grew out of the spirit of these journeys. They 
are filled with gratitude to God for his kindness, and 
with trust in his care, and with pride in their beautiful 
city Jerusalem which God had helped them to rebuild. 

"I was glad when they said unto me, 
Let us go into the house of the Lord." 

"As mountains are round about Jerusalem, 
So the Lord is round about them that fear 
him." 

Hebrew Music and Musical Instruments 

These hymns were frequently sung to the accom- 
paniment of instrumental music. There are many 
allusions in the book of Psalms and elsewhere in the 
Old Testament to the harp (kinnor), the psaltery 
(nebel), the cornet (shophar) and other instruments. 

We know just how they looked, for pictures of them, 
or at least of similar instruments, are found on Egyptian 
and Babylonian monuments. The harp was probably 
like a large guitar, only it was played like a mandolin, 
with a plectrum. The psaltery or lute was a larger- 
sized harp. The cornet or trumpet was simply a 
curved ram's horn blown with the lips like our cornets; 
there was also another form made out of brass, long 
and straight. The Hebrews also used a wind instru- 
ment like our flute, a pipe with holes on the side for 
making the different notes. They seem also to have 
been very fond of percussion instruments — the timbal, 
a small drum, and the cymbals, metal plates clashed 
together. 

It is impossible to know how far the Hebrews had 
developed the art of music. It seems most likely that 



i 4 4 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

the best they ever learned to do with these various 
instruments would have sounded to us more like a loud 
banging, twanging noise than like our own melodies 
and harmonies. 

Influence of this worship of prayer and song. — 
Nevertheless the prayer-hymns of which we have told 
could not fail to wield an influence on the lives of those 
who sung them. Boys and girls heard them week by 
week until they could not forget them. When they 
were tempted to wrongdoing these melodies rang in 
their ears. For in all these collections there were great 
hymns, written by men who had caught the spirit of 
God as had Amos and Hosea and their successors — 
men whose souls were white, whose love was tender, 
and whose courage was unshakable. Only such men 
could write such lines as these: 

"Lord, who shall sojourn in thy tabernacle? 

Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? 

He that walketh uprightly, and worketh right- 
eousness, 

And speaketh truth in his heart. 

He that slandereth not with his tongue, 

Nor doeth evil to his friend, 

Nor taketh up a reproach against his neigh- 
bor." 

Or these: 

"Thou delightest not in sacrifice ; else would 

I give it : 
Thou hast no pleasure in burnt-offering. 
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: 
A broken and a contrite heart, O God, 

thou wilt not despise." 




AN ASSYRIAN UP- AN ASSYRIAN HORIZON- 

RIGHT HARP TAL HARP 




A BABYLONIAN- 
HARP 




JEWISH HARPS ON COINS OF BAR COCHBA, 

I32-135 A . D . ASSYRIAN DULCIMER 

Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration Fund. 



HYMN AND PRAYER BOOKS 145 

These words and scores of other passages just as 
great set to music long since forgotten but in those 
days sweet to the ear, helped untold multitudes to do 
justice and to love mercy, to confess their sins, and to 
find strength and hope in God. 

Study Topics 

1. Of the "David" psalms, read any of the following 
chapters: 11, 13, 15, 23, of the book of Psalms. 

2. Of the "Pilgrim" psalms, read chapter 121 or 
124 or 126. 

3. Which of these do you like best? 

4. Look up words scattered through the Psalms 
which appear to be musical directions. 

5. In what ways did the following Psalms help the 
Jews to realize their hopes? — 

a. 15. 

b. 51. 

c. 124. 

6. For a good example of one of the prayers, in the 
temple, read 1 Kings 8. 27, 28. 



CHAPTER XXV 
A NARROW KIND OF PATRIOTISM 

All nations like to think of themselves as superior 
to the rest of mankind. The Greeks used to despise 
all foreigners as "barbarians." We in America ridicule 
immigrants from other countries and call them un- 
pleasant names. The Jews also made the same mistake 
of despising people of other races and nations. We 
find laws even in so just a law-book as Deuteronomy 
which are unfair to foreigners. Jews were forbidden 
to exact interest from fellow Jews, but they were per- 
mitted to exact it from foreigners. The flesh of animals 
which died of themselves could not be eaten by Jews, 
but they might sell it to foreigners. 

The Increasing Hatred Toward Foreigners After 
the Exile 

We have seen how the exiles in Babylonia kept the 
Sabbath and went to the synagogue in order that they 
might continue to be Jews and might not lose their 
Jewish religion, the worship of Jehovah. As time went 
on they found it necessary to be more and more strict. 
As their girls and boys grew up they fell in love with 
Babylonian young men and young women. But if 
these young Jews had married Babylonians, the children 
would have grown up as Babylonians in customs and 
religion. So all intermarriages were forbidden. 

The fight against intermarriages in Judaea. — When 
these exiles returned from Babylonia to Jerusalem they 
were shocked to find that the Jews there had not been 
146 



A NARROW KIND OF PATRIOTISM 147 

strict in this matter. They had taken wives and hus- 
bands from the Moabites, and Edomites, and other na- 
tions around Judaea. 

It is hard for us to see that this was wrong, for these 
people probably became worshipers of Jehovah, like 
Ruth the Moabitess in the beautiful story in the Bible, 
who said to her Jewish mother-in-law, "Thy people 
shall be my people, and thy God my God." The exiles 
from Babylon, however, including so good and wise a 
man as Nehemiah, fought with all their might against 
all intermarriages. Without doubt the motive, which 
was to protect the Hebrews from idolatry, was good, 
but the matter is certainly open to criticism, especially 
in the light of our truer knowledge of God. We read 
that at one time, even under the leadership of Ezra, 
one of the returned exiles, a large number of the wives 
from other nations were cruelly divorced and sent away 
weeping to their own people. All this helped to give 
the Jews a wrong and unreasonable pride in their own 
race and a silly and unkind contempt for other races. 

The hatred between the Jews and the Samar- 
itans. — About the time of Nehemiah there was also 
started a bitter feud between the Jews and the Samar- 
itans. There had always been a good deal of jealousy 
between the people of Judah in the South, and the 
Hebrews of the central and northern parts of Canaan. 
Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom, which 
had split off from the kingdom of David and Solomon. 
This old jealousy flamed up again after Nehemiah. 
The Samaritans had intermarried with their heathen 
neighbors, perhaps more than the Jews in Judaea. So 
the Jews claimed that the Samaritans had no right 
to call themselves true Hebrews. 

The Samaritans, on the other hand, claimed that 



148 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

they were true children of Abraham, and they built 
a temple of their own on Mount Gerizim as a rival to 
the temple of Jerusalem. This jealousy and hate grew 
more and more bitter until, in the time of Jesus, the 
Jews looked upon Samaritans with even more contempt 
than any Gentiles. 

The growing prejudice against the Jews among 
other peoples. — Those who call names generally hear 
themselves taunted and ridiculed in turn. The very 
fact that the Jews would not work on the Sabbath 
marked them as peculiar and helped to make them 
unpopular. Their laws about foods, clean and unclean, 
were also different from those of other nations. For 
example, they would not eat pork. Moreover, as time 
went on many of the Jews in Babylon and in other 
foreign lands grew prosperous. They were industrious 
and they had brains and a special gift for trade. Before 
long they had money to lend, and they often demanded 
unjust rates of interest. This too made them un- 
popular. So the more proudly and contemptuously 
they held aloof from Babylonians, Persians, Egyptians, 
and all other foreigners the more frequently they heard 
themselves called "Jewish dogs" and other hard names. 

The Coming of the Greeks 

This racial pride on the part of the Jews was still 
more increased by the coming of another unusually 
proud people, the Greeks. In the year B. C. 333, 
Alexander the Great defeated the army of the king of 
Persia and soon extended his rule over all western Asia, 
including Judaea. Very soon Greeks were everywhere 
to be seen, in all the cities of Palestine. In order to 
protect the country from the desert robbers who, as we 
have seen, had been making their raids through all the 



A NARROW KIND OF PATRIOTISM 149 

centuries, a chain of Greek cities was built to the east 
of the Jordan and thousands of Greek settlers were 
brought there to live. The ruins of many beautiful 
Greek temples and theaters may still be seen in that 
country. Samaria was also rebuilt as a Greek city, 
the capital of the province. So there were Greeks on 
all sides of Jerusalem and throngs of Greek merchants 
and travelers were to be seen on the streets of every 
Jewish city and village. 

The Greeks in some ways had as much to be proud 
of as a people as the Jews. Their sculptors had carved 
the most beautiful marbles in the world. Their poets 
had composed the most beautiful poems. Their phil- 
osophers were wiser than those of any other nation. 
Moreover, many of these Greeks who came into 
Palestine and other countries of Asia were filled with 
a truly missionary spirit. It is said that Alexander the 
Great was inspired by the thought that he was helping 
to spread the art and wisdom and culture of the Greeks 
throughout the world. 

The struggle between Judaism and Hellenism. — 
This meant that the old religion of Jehovah was in 
danger of being forgotten not only in Babylonia and 
other lands but even in Judaea and Jerusalem. Many 
Jews quite fell in love with the new art and learning of 
the Greeks. They learned the Greek language, gave 
their children Greek names, such as "Jason," for exam- 
ple, instead of "Joshua." A gymnasium was built in 
Jerusalem where Jewish lads learned to exercise and 
play games after the Greek style. Many of them tried 
to hide the fact that they were Jews, and too often 
they ceased to worship Jehovah, the God of their 
fathers, and offered sacrifices to Zeus and other Greek 
divinities. 



ISO HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

The beginnings of the Pharisees. — Other Jews 

fought against all these new ideas and fashions. They 
became more strict than ever in their observance of the 
peculiar customs and regulations of the Jewish law. It 
was at this time that the beginnings of the party of the 
Pharisees came into existence, of which we read in the 
New Testament. The word "Pharisee" means "one 
who is kept apart, or separate"; that is, one who holds 
aloof from the heathen and from heathen customs. 
They were the men who "when they come from the 
market place, eat not, except they bathe themselves." 
They might have touched some heathen person in the 
street which they thought made them ceremonially 
unclean. In the earlier days the Pharisees were called 
"Hasideans," or "the pious." 

It was right, of course, that these men should strug- 
gle to keep their religion alive. The great religious 
truths of the prophets were worth more to the world 
than all the art and wisdom of the Greeks. But the 
result of the struggle was an even greater scorn on the 
part of the Hebrews for all men who were not Jews. 

Study Topics 

i. Read Esther 9. 5, 11-16. What kind of patriotism 
does this passage express? 

2. Compare the following laws in Deuteronomy: 10. 
18-19 and 14. 21. Can you explain the inconsistency? 

3. What national characteristics do hatred and con- 
tempt of other nations lead to? 

4. What is the danger from continually hurling bad 
names at foreigners, such as "Greasers," "Chinks," and 
so on? 



CHAPTER XXVI 
A BROAD-MINDED AND NOBLE PATRIOTISM 

In spite of all their prejudice, thinking Jews could 
not help but see that the Greeks, in spite of their 
heathen religion, had brought with them many of the 
blessings of civilization. Many articles of everyday 
comfort were introduced into Canaan for the first time 
by the Greeks, for example, new varieties of food, 
such as pumpkins, vinegar, asparagus, and various 
kinds of cheese. From the Greeks also the Jews 
learned to preserve fish by salting them. This made 
possible the splendid fishing business by the Sea of 
Galilee. In the time of Jesus we find this lake sur- 
rounded by flourishing towns. Most of the men in 
these towns supported themselves and their families by 
fishing. The fish were salted and the salt fish sold in 
the inland towns. They were even exported to foreign 
countries. The Greeks probably also introduced poultry 
and hens' eggs to the farmers and housewives of Canaan. 

New articles of dress and furniture. — These same 
newcomers brought with them a greater variety of fabrics 
and garments, such as Cilician goat's-hair cloth, out of 
which coarse cloaks and curtains, as well as tents, were 
made; also felt for hats and sandals. The Greeks also 
introduced the custom of carrying handkerchiefs. 
Many new kinds of household utensils came into Jewish 
homes as a result of the example of their Greek asso- 
ciates, for example, arm chairs, mirrors, table cloths, 
plates, and cups. Hemp and hempen cords and ropes 
came from the Greeks. From this same source came 
151 



i 5 2 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

the custom of placing food at meals on dining tables, 
like ours, while the diners, unlike ourselves, lay on 
couches with their heads toward the table. It may also 
have been the Greeks — although possibly it was the 
Persians — who first brought coined money into Canaan, 
so that in making each purchase it was not necessary to 
weigh the silver or the gold. 

All these useful and beautiful things helped to win 
over sensible people among the Jews to look with favor 
on their new neighbors. And when Jewish travelers 
found themselves stopping at new and more comfort- 
able inns managed by Greek innkeepers, and went to 
bathe in the public baths which were erected in the 
larger cities by the Greek authorities, they were sure to 
spread the idea that even Jews might learn something 
from the Greeks. 

B road-Minded Patriots Among the Jews 

Fortunately there were some among the Jews who 
could appreciate the good and beautiful things in Greek 
civilization without being disloyal to their own race and 
their own religion; and, on the other hand, could be 
proud of the great teachings of the prophets without 
hating and despising men of other races. They had 
learned well the lesson of that great prophet whom we 
call the Second Isaiah, that Jehovah chose Israel, not 
as his special "pet" or favorite, but as his servant to 
teach all nations about the true God and his righteous 
rule. Such men realized that the Greeks and Egyp- 
tians and other foreigners were Jehovah's children like 
themselves, and that instead of despising them they 
ought to make friends with them and trv to teach them 
the religion of Jehovah. 

Jewish religious books written for Greeks. — It 



A BROAD-MINDED PATRIOTISM 153 

was by men of this broad spirit that a number of books 
were written for the sake of winning Greeks to the 
Jewish religion. These books were written in the Greek 
language and explained to Greek readers the law of Moses 
and the teachings of the prophets. Among the most 
important of these books was the translation of the 
Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. This translation was 
made, indeed, chiefly for the benefit of Jews living in 
Greek countries who had forgotten the old Hebrew 
tongue. But the translators also had in mind the great 
non- Jewish Greek world. 

And the new translation, sometimes called the Sep- 
tuagint (that is, the book of the seventy translators 
who are said to have worked on it), found its way into 
the hands of many a Greek reader who learned from it 
for the first time something about the religion of Jehovah. 

The author of the story of Jonah, in the Bible, was 
another Jew of this broad spirit. He had traveled in 
Egypt. He had seen the vices and sins of the heathen. 
And he had tried to tell them of the just and merciful 
laws of the one God of all the world, Jehovah. Many 
of his fellow Jews criticised him for this. "Why do 
you have anything to do with these Gentile dogs?" they 
asked. It was in answer to this question that he wrote 
about Jonah, the prophet whom Jehovah had sent to 
preach to the wicked heathen city of Nineveh. He had 
tried to avoid obeying the command, but at last had 
gone; and when the Ninevites listened to his preaching 
and repented and turned to Jehovah he was angry. And 
Jehovah said unto him, "Should not I have regard for 
Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six 
score thousand persons that cannot discern between 
their right hand and their left hand?" (That is, six 
score thousand little children.) 



i 5 4 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

Jonah in this story is a type of the Jewish people. 
As Jehovah sent Jonah to preach to the Ninevites, so 
he would send the Jews to teach the nations of his love. 
What a pity to be so narrow-minded, so blinded by pride 
of race, as to have no sympathy or good will for any 
other race of men! This is the lesson the author of the 
book meant to teach. 

Probably very few of the Jews who heard this man, 
or read his book, understood or appreciated him. But 
there were enough of them who cared for him to pre- 
serve his book, so that it became a part of their sacred 
writings; and perhaps more than any other book in the 
Old Testament it prepared the way for a broadening of 
the dreams and plans of Abraham and Moses and the 
prophets to include not only Jews but all mankind — 
that broadening which we call Christianity. 

Study Topics 

i. Read Isaiah 19. 19-24. 

2. What do you think this writer would have thought 
of our American habit of calling names at foreigners? 

3. What advice would these writers have given us, in 
regard to our "Japanese" problem? 

4. If you have time, look into the book of Jonah. 



CHAPTER XXVII 
OUTDOOR TEACHERS AMONG THE JEWS 

All children among all races receive as they grow up 
some kind of an education. Isaac learned from his father 
Abraham and from the other older people about him 
how to set up a tent, how to milk a goat, how to recog- 
nize the tracks of bears and other wild beasts, and all 
the other bits of knowledge so necessary to wandering 
shepherds. Not till many centuries after Abraham in 
Hebrew history were there any special schools apart 
from the everyday experiences of life, or any man whose 
special work was that of teaching. But in the centuries 
following the destruction of Jerusalem by the Baby- 
lonians and its gradual restoration, the people came 
more and more to see the importance of education. 
And in the course of these three or four centuries before 
the coming of Christ there grew up two kinds of schools 
and two kinds of teachers, first, an open air school where 
life itself itself was studied, and then later, in the second 
place, an indoor school, where the chief study was that 

of books. 

Schools in the Open Air 

These open-air schools were most often to be seen 
in the "city gate." The Jews meant by the "gate" of 
the city the broad open space in front of the actual 
opening in the city wall. It was like the public 
square in our modern towns. 

Scenes in the "Gate." — Suppose we visit one of 
the "gates." It is early morning. Everything is noise 
and confusion. Here are merchants peddling their 
wheat, or dates, or honey, their wool or their flax. 
Customers are haggling over prices. Each one is 
i55 



1 56 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

shouting with a shrill voice and with many gestures 
that the price asked is an outrage. Besides the mer- 
chants there are judges. Here sits one of the city- 
elders with a long white beard. Before him are two 
farmers disputing over a boundary line — also witnesses 
and spectators. 

Out in the middle of the area children are playing. 
Every now and then a mangy yellow dog noses his way 
through the crowd looking for scraps of food. And 
everywhere are the folks who came out just to see their 
neighbors and to hear the news. 

In one corner of the open space by the "gate" we 
notice a dignified figure, an old man with a circle of 
friends and listeners. He is watching the varied scenes 
around him and occasionally talking with those about 
him. 

"Who is that old man?" we ask. 

"That is one of the wise men," we are told. 

These "wise men" among the Hebrews studied 
human nature, and gave to young men and to any 
less-experienced people who cared to listen, the benefit 
of their practical good sense. They loved to teach 
through "proverbs," that is, short and witty sentences. 
A large number of the "proverbs" of these teachers are 
preserved in the Book of Proverbs in our Old Testament. 

The Teaching of the Wise Men 
One of the most important keys to success in life is 
a knowledge of people. This the wise men helped their 
students to obtain. Let us sit for a while beside one 
of them and look through his eyes at the people who 
pass by. Here comes young Mr. Know-it-all. He 
wears a very fine garment, and walks with a swagger. 

Part of this page taken from the author's earlier book, The Story of Our Bible. 
Copyright, 1014, 1015, by Charles Scribner's Sons. Used by permission. 



OUTDOOR TEACHERS AMONG THE JEWS 157 

His father and mother and all his aunts and uncles 
have always told him that he is the most clever person 
in the world. And, of course, he agrees with them. 
He will listen to advice from nobody. The wise man 
watches him pass, then says to his hearers: 

"Seest thou a wise man in his own conceit? 

There is more hope of a fool than of him." 

(Proverbs 26. 12.) 

The wise man has a sense of humor. He loves to 
smile at the little inconsistencies of life. He has been 
listening to the talk between a merchant and his cus- 
tomer. And this is his comment on it. 

"It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer : 

But when he is gone his way, then he 

boasteth." (Proverbs 20. 14) 

But though he is so quick to laugh at human follies 
the wise man has a tender heart. He helps his hearers 
to sympathize with those who are anxious and dis- 
couraged. And he knows the value of friendly encour- 
agement. 

"Heaviness in the heart of a man maketh 

it stoop; 
But a good word maketh it glad." 

(Proverbs 12. 25.) 

A practical advice of the wise men. — With this 
knowledge of human nature these teachers were able to 
give much good counsel in matters of business. For 
example, there were tricksters in those days just as 
now. One of their favorite tricks was to persuade 
some "greenhorn" to act as surety for a loan. "Just 

Part of this page taken from the author's earlier book, The Story of Our Bible. 
Copyright, 1914. I9i5i by Charles Scribner's Sons. Used by permission. 



158 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

shake hands with me before witnesses," the smooth 
tongued one would say, "and the banker will lend me 
money; there is a caravan of silks coming from 
Damascus which I can buy for a song. We will both 
be rich." So the poor fool would shake hands before 
witnesses, which was like our modern custom of sign- 
ing one's name on a note. The man would then take 
the money and disappear, leaving his victim to repay 
the loan or be sold into slavery. "Be on your guard 
against these sharpers," the wise men were constantly 
saying. 

Helping People to Live Lovingly Together 

The best part of the teaching of the wise men had 
to do with even more important matters than how 
to keep from being cheated. They helped people live 
together. They had many sensible things to say 
about good manners. For example, Joshua the son 
of Sirach, a wise man whose sayings are found in the 
book of Ecclesiasticus in the Apocrypha, gives much 
wise counsel about table manners: 

"Consider thy neighbor's liking by thine own, 
And be discreet in every point. 
Eat as becometh a man, those things 

which are set before thee; 
And eat not greedily, lest thou be hated. 
Be first to leave off, for manner's sake, 
And be not insatiable, lest thou offend." 

Surely courtesy at the table is one of the things 
which make life happy and noble. Truly civilized 
people do not eat like pigs in a trough. 

As the y looked out upon the lives of men what 

Part of this page taken from the author's earlier book. The Story of Our Bible. 
Copyright, 1914. I9IS. by Charles Scribner's Sons. Used by permission. 



OUTDOOR TEACHERS AMONG THE JEWS 159 

made the wise men most sorry was the hatred and bit- 
terness which they so often saw between those who 
should have been friends. One of their most frequent 
teachings was the need for the control of one's anger 
and for charity and forgiveness. 

"A fool uttereth all his anger, 
But a wise man keepeth it back." 

(Proverbs 29. 11.) 

"He that covereth a transgression seeketh 

love: 
But he that harpeth on a matter separateth 

chief friends." (Proverbs 17. 9.) 

Their condemnation of tale-bearing. — Since the 
wise men felt so strongly on this point, it is not sur- 
prising that they kept their most scathing denunciations 
for tale-bearers and troublemakers. Too often they saw 
men who were formerly dear friends passing by each 
other with dark looks. Some liar had been sowing his 
evil seed. If you have anything to say against a man, 
the wise men urged, say it to his face. Don't talk 
against him behind his back. 

"A froward man scattereth abroad strife : 
And a whisperer separateth chief friends." 
(Proverbs 16. 28.) 

The Religious Teaching of the Wise Men 

There came a time, perhaps a century or two after 
Nehemiah, when the wise men were the chief moral and 
religious leaders of the Jewish nation. The people had 
lost faith in the prophets, for there were no more 
prophets like Amos or Isaiah. And these practical 

Part of this page taken from the author's earlier book, The Story of Our Bible. 
Copyright, 1914, I9I5, by Charles Scribner's Sons. Used by permission. 



160 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

teachers with their warm sympathy and kind hearts 
had many true words to speak about the God of wisdom 
and of love. The book of Job in the Bible, one of the 
greatest books of history, was written by one of these 
wise men. It is a story of a man who found God 
although both his own misfortunes and also the false 
ideas of his friends had made him think that God was 
his enemy. He found God at last because he was brave 
enough to think for himself. 

So these teachers gave their pupils the best kind of 
education. They too, like the prophets and all the 
leaders about whom we have studied, helped to prepare 
their pupils for the life of loving brotherhood with God 
as their common Father, which was the goal toward 
which all this history we have studied was slowly but 
surely moving. 

Study Topics 

i. Browse through the book of Proverbs, especially 
chapters 10 and following, looking for teachings on the 
following subjects; enter the references opposite (a), (b), 
etc., below. 

(a) Diligence in work. 

(b) Temperance in use of wine. 

(c) Honesty in business. 

(d) Compassion toward the poor. 

(e) Self-control in anger. 

2. Read Ecclesiastes n, for a taste of another "wis- 
dom" book. 

3. Find if you can a Bible with the Apocrypha be- 
tween the Old and New Testaments, and read a chapter 
or two in Ecclesiasticus, or the wisdom of the Son of 
Sira. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 
BOOK LEARNING AMONG THE JEWS 

If we could have visited the home of some sincerely 
religious Jew about the time when the law of Deuter- 
onomy was adopted by King Josiah and the people we 
might have seen the beginning of a new kind of educa- 
tion — the regular study of books, and especially of the 
Bible. They had for their Bible at that time the law of 
Deuteronomy, which they had accepted as God's will 
for all Jews. And if this was God's will for them, it 
was plain that it must be taught to everybody, begin- 
ning with the children. 

Teaching the Law at Home 

Let us imagine ourselves, then, visiting the house of 
some good Jewish friend in Jerusalem under Josiah. As 
we enter the door we notice letters roughly carved or 
painted on the wooden door. "You ask what are those 
words," replies our host to our question. "They are from 
our law. They are for the children to see, as they go 
in and out the door. This is the way the inscription 
reads: 

" 'Hear, O Israel : Jehovah thy God is 
one and thou shalt love Jehovah thy God, 
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, 
and with all thy mind, and with all thy 
strength.' 

"The priest wrote them for us and both I myself and 
the children have been learning to read them," says our 
161 



162 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

friend. "And every Sabbath we study them, and I 
teach the children to repeat after me as much of the 
rest of Jehovah's law as I can remember. Sometimes 
the children ask me questions. They say, 'What mean 
these laws and these statutes which you say Jehovah 
our God commanded?' Then I answer, 'We were 
Pharaoh's slaves in the land of Egypt. And Jehovah 
brought us up out of Egypt ... to give us this land. 
And Jehovah commanded us to do all these statutes, to 
fear Jehovah our God for our good.' " 

Religion through education. — It is easy to under- 
stand that with this training in childhood it became 
more and more easy from this time on to persuade the 
Jewish people not to worship idols and to see why they 
gradually changed more and more rapidly into the most 
devout and earnest people in the world. The children 
were taught in their homes. 

The New Kind of Teachers, the Scribes 

After Josiah's time many additions were made to this 
law of Jehovah. At first it consisted of only a part of 
our book of Deuteronomy. But the learned priests and 
prophets, especially after the destruction of Jerusalem, 
made a careful study of all the writings of preceding 
generations, and they found many collections of laws and 
histories of Jehovah's dealings with his people which 
seemed to them inspired of Jehovah and worthy to be 
reverenced and obeyed. They tried the experiment of 
combining some of these with the law of Deuteronomy. 
So it came to pass that two or three centuries later 
the Jews had as their sacred book the whole of what 
is now the Pentateuch, or the first five books of the 
Bible. 

The need of other teachers besides the father in 



BOOK LEARNING AMONG THE JEWS 163 

the home. — If this larger Bible was to be carefully 
studied by every Jew from his childhood up, there must 
be certain men who should give their lives to teaching 
it. So in time there came to be a class of teachers 
known as "scribes." These men spent all their working 
hours reading this law of God, making copies of it and 
teaching it to others. Some of these men were truly 
great and good. For example, there was the gentle 
Hillel, who lived about a century before Christ and who 
taught the spirit of the Golden Rule, although in a form 
not so perfect as that of Jesus. 

"Do not to your neighbor what is im- 
pleasant to yourself. 
This is the whole law. All else is expo- 
sition." 

It was a scribe like this who talked with Jesus about 
the "greatest commandment," and to whom Jesus said, 
"Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God." 

The Schools of the Scribes 

These teachers conducted regular daily schools in the 
synagogues. More and more children were sent to 
them until in the time of Jesus all boys were supposed 
to go for at least a year or two. Girls were taught 
only at home. People had not yet come to realize that 
the minds of girls are as well worth educating as those 
of boys. 

The methods of teaching. — The boys sat on the 
floor in a circle before the teacher. They repeated 
after him the Jewish alphabet and learned to recognize 
each letter. Their only textbooks were papyrus rolls 
on which were written parts of the law. They began 



i6 4 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

with Leviticus and learned by heart as much of it as 
possible. We can imagine that the boys were glad when 
they finished with Leviticus and went back to Genesis 
to the stories of Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph. 

They also learned to write. Their copybooks were 
at first rough scraps of broken pottery on which with 
sharp nails they learned to scratch letters. Probably 
mischievous boys sometimes drew pictures instead of 
practicing the words assigned to them. After they 
could write fairly well they were given wax tablets, or 
even a bit of papyrus, a quill pen, and an ink horn. 
Papyrus was expensive and had to be used with care. 

Good and Bad Results of the Teaching 
of the Scribes 

So much study of these books of law and history was 
bound to wield a mighty influence. Those thousands 
of boys studying laws which for their time were the 
most just and humane in the world, could not but 
learn something about the meaning of justice and 
mercy. Better still, the wonderful stories in Genesis 
and Exodus left their sure impress on the hearts of 
those who studied. The boys for the most part rever- 
enced their teachers, and many of them came to love 
their Book, the law. It was a boy, so taught, who 
when he was older, wrote that Psalm: 

"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet 
And light unto my path. 

Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse 

his way? 
By taking heed thereto, according to thy 

word." 



BOOK LEARNING AMONG THE JEWS 165 

The danger of formality. — The danger in this kind 
of education is that of blindness to the voice of God to 
be heard in everyday experience or in our own hearts 
as well as in the written Scripture. The result of 
this blindness is that goodness and religion are thought 
of as merely the keeping of the written law. It was 
such blind scribes whom Jesus denounced for giving 
tithes, or a tenth part of the mint and anise and cum- 
min, that is, of even the most insignificant of their 
garden herbs and forgetting mercy and justice and 
faith; in other words, keeping the letter of the written 
law but not living out the spirit of it. It is not 
enough, Jesus taught, just to obey what is written. 
To do only that is to be an unprofitable servant. This 
bad kind of religion grew up in those schools where 
only books were studied, not the real everyday experi- 
ence of living people. 

Jesus Was a Wise Man Rather than a Scribe 

When Jesus came he was a teacher more like those 
more ancient wise men of the city gates. Like them he 
taught his listeners out of doors by the shores of the 
lake or on the hillside as well as in the synagogues. 
He reverenced the Bible, the Law and the Prophets, 
as God's word, but he listened for that word also in 
the sights and sounds of the streets and country lanes. 
He heard his Father's voice as he listened to house 
wives chatting with their neighbors, or to vineyard 
keepers hiring harvest hands. 

"When He walked the fields he drew 
From the flowers and birds and dew 
Parables of God, 



1 66 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

For within his heart of love 
All the soul of man did move — 
God had his abode." 

Study Topics 

i. Look up in the Bible dictionary under "Scribes" 
and "Rabbi." 

2. What impressions of the scribes do you get from 
Matthew 7. 28-29, Matthew 15. 1-9, and Mark 12. 
28-34? 

3. Read Luke 1. 5-6; 2. 25-36. Where and how 
do you think these good men and women, among whom 
Jesus was born, got their training? 



CHAPTER XXIX 

NEW OPPRESSORS AND NEW WARS FOR 
FREEDOM 

After the death of Alexander the Great his empire 
was broken into fragments ruled by those of his generals 
who were able to snatch these smaller kingdoms for 
themselves. One of them named Ptolemy seized Egypt. 
His descendants, known as the Ptolemies, reigned there 
for centuries. Another, named Seleucus, gained control 
of the greater part of the old Persian empire. He built 
the city of Antioch, in northern Syria, naming it after 
his father Antiochus. His descendants, on the throne 
of the new kingdom, are known in history as the 
Seleucids. 

The Jews Under Greek Rulers 

Canaan at first became part of the kingdom of the 
Ptolemies, and this continued for about a century. 
During this period the Jews seemed to have been 
treated with a fair degree of kindness and justice. At 
least they were left most of the time in peace. But 
about B. C. 200, Canaan was taken from the Ptolemies 
by the Seleucids, and this turned out to be for the 
Jewish people an unhappy change. In the year 175 
B. C, there came to the throne in Antioch a young 
prince named Antiochus Epiphanes who, like Alexander 
the Great, thought of himself as a kind of missionary 
for Greek art and civilization. He became more and 
more angry because so many of the Jews refused to 
worship Greek gods. About B. C. 170, he issued a 
167 



168 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

decree that all persons in his dominion must offer 
sacrifices to Zeus. When the Jews refused they were 
put to death. 

New persecutions. — A terrible persecution was thus 
begun. A Greek officer would come into a Jewish town 
or village, set up an altar to Zeus, and summon all the 
people to join in the sacrifice of worship. As many as 
possible of those who refused were hunted down and 
killed. All copies of the Jewish law that could be 
found were burned. Every month a search was made 
throughout Judaea to see whether any Jew still had 
copies of the Scriptures. A heathen altar was set up 
in the temple at Jerusalem and swine were sacrificed 
upon it. To the Jews, who were taught to regard 
swine's flesh as unclean and unholy, nothing could 
have seemed more horrible. 

Of course there were some traitors and renegades. 
But the great majority of the Jewish people were nobly 
true to the faith of their fathers. Hundreds and thou- 
sands, young and old, allowed themselves to be tortured 
and slain rather than take part in a heathen sacrifice. 
Many even of those who had fallen in with some of 
the evil customs of the Greeks now refused to be 
known as anything else than faithful Jews, even though 
it might cost them their lives. 

The Maccabean Revolts and Victories 

In the midst of this cruel persecution a rebellion 
flamed up under the leadership of a certain brave old 
priest named Mattathias. After his death his sons 
took up the cause. The greatest of them was Judas, 
who was surnamed Maccabeus, which some have 
thought meant the Hammerer. The whole family is 
known as the Maccabees. Under the skillful command 



NEW OPPRESSORS AND NEW WARS 169 

of Judas victory after victory was won by his little 
band of Jewish warriors fighting against great armies 
of Greek hired soldiers. The city of Jerusalem was 
cleared of the detested oppressors, all except a garrison 
that maintained itself in the citadel. The temple was 
purified and rededicated to Jehovah. 

After some twenty years the soldiers from Antioch 
were driven out altogether and the little Jewish king- 
dom under Simon, a brother of Judas, was recognized 
as independent. For nearly a century the descendants 
of the Maccabees reigned in Jerusalem. Most of them 
turned out to be greedy and selfish men unworthy 
of Judas and Simon. Yet during this period the Jews 
tasted once again something of the joys of freedom. 

The Victories of Rome 

During the last two centuries before Christ a new 
empire had been growing up in the west, that of Rome. 
In the year B. C. 63, two princes of the Maccabean line 
fell into a quarrel as to which one should be king. 
There was a civil war, which was ended by the Roman 
general Pompey, who annexed the country as a province 
of the Roman Empire. This was the end of the inde- 
pendence of the Jewish nation. 

The Herods. — Sometimes Roman provinces were 
ruled by Roman governors, and at other times they 
were left to native kings who were allowed to do 
pretty much as they pleased so long as they paid tribute 
to Rome. There was a certain Edomite, or Idumean, 
as the name was pronounced by the Greeks and 
Romans, who partly by flattery and partly by real 
ability persuaded Romans to make him king over the 
whole land of Palestine. 

This man is known in the history books as Herod the 



i;o HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

Great, although he was sadly lacking in true greatness, 
being fearfully cruel and absolutely selfish. He built 
many beautiful palaces in various Jewish cities and also 
rebuilt very beautifully the temple at Jerusalem. He 
himself had no interest in religion, but he hoped in 
this way to win back with the Jews some of the popu- 
larity which he had lost through his many crimes. It 
was during his reign that Jesus was born. When Herod 
died the land was divided among his sons. When 
Jesus began his public career as a teacher one of these 
sons, Herod Antipas, was the ruler of the northern part 
of the country, that is Galilee. Judaea, in the south, and 
Samaria between Galilee and Judaea, were directly under 
Roman rule with a Roman governor or procurator. 

The Sanhedrin. — To a certain extent even after the 
Roman conquest the Jews were permitted to govern 
themselves. There was in Jerusalem a council, or 
court, of leading priests and rabbis, called the San- 
hedrin. There were in it seventy-one members. When 
any member died the others elected some one to fill the 
vacancy. All Jews everywhere were supposed to be 
under the authority of the Sanhedrin. But except in 
purely religious matters it had little power outside of 
Judaea. In Judaea, however, this court, or council, 
decided all questions except those which the Roman 
procurator reserved for himself. They were not allowed 
to condemn a criminal to death. So when the San- 
hedrin voted to put Jesus out of the way it was neces- 
sary to take him before Pilate the Roman procurator 
and persuade Pilate to ratify the sentence of death. 
How galling it was to a proud nation like the Jews to 
be obliged to go to a hated enemy for permission to 
carry out their decrees we can well imagine; and we 
shall learn more of it in the next chapter. 



NEW OPPRESSORS AND NEW WARS 171 

Study Topics 

1. Look up in the Bible dictionary, Maccabees and 
Herod. 

2. Read Hebrews n. 32-40. Verses 33-38 are prob- 
ably in large part a description of the heroic martyrs 
before the Maccabees. 

3. Was the Maccabean rule a failure because it did 
not last? 

4. How did these rulers contribute to the great 
ends which Jews had always dreamed of. 



CHAPTER XXX 

THE DISCONTENT OF THE JEWS UNDER 
ROMAN RULE 

In spite of the fact that the Jews still had some 
power of self-government through the Sanhedrin, the 
great mass of the people hated the Romans with an 
almost inconceivable fury. The world had never before 
seen such cruel rulers. The Assyrians had been bad, 
but the Romans were worse. Think of that form of 
punishment which they inflicted carelessly every day 
even for minor crimes — crucifixion! The poor victim 
was nailed by the hands and feet to a pole and left 
to hang in agony till death mercifully ended it all. 
Think of the gladiatorial combats in the city of Rome 
and in other Roman cities, where every day for cen- 
turies slaves or condemned criminals fought each other 
with swords to the death, or fought with wild beasts 
while the gloating multitudes looked on in rapture. 

Moreover, not only were the Romans very cruel, 
they had no manners. They were haughty in their 
bearing and took pains to let conquered people know 
how thoroughly they were despised. 

Roman cruelty in Palestine. — All these qualities 
were manifested almost at their worst by the Roman 
rulers in Judaea and Galilee. Jesus speaks of certain 
Galilaeans, "whose blood Pilate mingled with their 
sacrifices." We know nothing of this incident except 
what Jesus tells. Evidently, these Galilaeans had come 
as pilgrims to Jerusalem at the time of one of the 
172 



THE DISCONTENT OF THE JEWS 173 

annual feasts. Possibly they did not salute with suf- 
ficient respect the Roman eagles as they passed some 
squad of Roman soldiers in the street. At any rate, 
they were taken before Pilate and ruthlessly con- 
demned to the slaughter. 

Roman taxes and the Publicans. — Naturally, the 
thought of paying taxes to such masters was almost 
unbearable. Yet each adult Jewish man and woman 
was required to pay a personal or poll tax besides 
taxes on his property or income. To make matters 
worse, the Romans were accustomed to hire Jews to 
collect these taxes, giving these men the right to extort 
whatever they could, provided the required tribute was 
paid to Rome. Of course all true Jews hated and 
despised these Jewish tax-gatherers or publicans even 
more than they hated and despised the Romans them- 
selves. 

Various Parties Among the Jews 

There were some respectable Jews, indeed, as well as 
these tax-collectors, who favored the Romans. There 
were for example the Sadducees, a group of wealthy 
and aristocratic men, mostly priests, who formed a sort 
of political party called by this name. Many of them 
were members of the Sanhedrim They were prosper- 
ous, and so long as their power was not taken away 
they sided with the Romans. It was nothing to them 
that the great mass of their poor fellow countrymen 
were being brutally and wickedly robbed and ill- 
treated. 

The Pharisees. — We have already spoken of the 
Pharisees as being "Separatists," that is, the people 
who were most opposed to any contact with heathen 
foreigners. Strange to say, most of the Pharisees were 



i 7 4 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

opposed to any violent rebellion against the Romans. 
They believed that God himself would come to the aid 
of his people. Many books of the class called apoca- 
lypses were written during this period of the history in 
which the writers tried to comfort their readers by 
prophesying that the Lord would soon descend from 
heaven with armies of angels or would send his Mes- 
siah to drive out the Romans and set up his own 
kingdom. The word "Messiah" (in Greek, "Christ") 
means anointed one. 

The book of Darnel in the Old Testament is one of 
the books of this period. Many similar books were 
written which were not included in the canon of the 
Scriptures. All of them were written in rather mys- 
terious language — with references to trumpets, vials, 
seals, beasts with many heads and many horns, and so 
on. This was to keep their heathen rulers from under- 
standing the real meaning. It would not have been 
safe openly to predict that in a few years God was 
going to send all Romans to eternal punishment. 

The Zealots. — There were still others among the 
Jews at this time who were not willing to wait for 
Jehovah to come down from heaven. They wanted to 
start a revolution right away. One such man, Judas 
of Gamala, led a revolt when Jesus was about ten years 
old in which many Galilaeans joined. It was put down 
by the Romans with their usual cruelty. Very likely 
the fathers of some of Jesus' boyhood friends in 
Nazareth of Galilee were crucified as the punishment 
for taking part in this revolt. Those who sympathized 
with Judas continued to plot in secret against the hated 
Roman oppressors. They were called Zealots. One of 
them became a member of Jesus' band of twelve 
apostles. 



THE DISCONTENT OF THE JEWS 175 

Smoldering Hate Among the People 

Whether they were actual plotters against Rome, like 
the Zealots, or whether they gave their strength to 
eager prayer to Jehovah for deliverance, the great mass 
of the common people among the Jews in the time of 
Christ were burning with a fierce patriotism and with a 
hatred against their oppressors such as we can scarcely 
imagine. The century of freedom under the Maccabees 
had made them all the more impatient of tyranny — and 
then to find themselves under such unspeakable tyrants 
as Herod and Pilate! — this was almost unendurable. 

The children drank in this spirit with their mothers' 
milk. Fathers and mothers had constantly to warn 
their boys and girls not to show their feelings toward 
Roman officers and soldiers lest some dreadful punish- 
ment should befall them. So it went on from year 
to year, growing constantly worse instead of better. 
The whole land was like a heap of smoldering leaves. 
Sooner or later there would be a sudden flare of open 
flame. 

Study Topics 

1. Look up in the Bible dictionary "Publicans," 
"Zealots," and "Sadducees." 

2. How do you explain the success of the Romans 
in tyrannizing the proud Jews for so many years? 
Consider the part played by the Sadducees. 

3. Read Matthew 3. 1-2. Why did John's message 
arouse such interest and enthusiasm? 



CHAPTER XXXI 
JEWISH HOPES MADE GREATER BY JESUS 

This history of the common people of Israel began 
with certain vague hopes of a happier and nobler way 
of living for the descendants of Abraham. As the cen- 
turies passed these hopes were only very partially 
realized. But what was more important the Jews 
came more and more clearly to understand the meaning 
of their own hopes. Their great teachers helped them 
to know what they really wanted or ought to want 
if they would be happy. Moses taught them the first 
lessons of justice as the foundation of happiness. The 
great prophets helped them to see that neither happi- 
ness nor justice was possible except as they knew and 
worshiped the true God — not a God of greed and anger 
to be bribed with sacrifices, but the God of justice and 
love. A few of the prophets also began to see that 
such hopes as theirs could not be for Jews alone but 
must include all mankind. 

The Fullness of the Times 

The Jews under their Roman masters had come to 
a time, as we saw in the preceding chapter, when they 
were wildly expecting an immediate fulfillment of these 
hopes. The short taste of freedom and happiness which 
they had enjoyed under Judas and Simon Maccabeus, 
followed by a tyranny more cruel and distasteful than 
any which their ancestors had known, made them 
almost mad with the desire for some kind of a Saviour. 
And it seemed to them that he must come soon. 
176 



JEWISH HOPES MADE GREATER 177 

The chance for a world-Saviour. — All over the 
world just at this time there were strange hopes and 
longings in men's hearts. The Romans had robbed 
many other nations besides the Jews of their inde- 
pendence. These people had no real nation of their 
own any longer to live for — and they hated Rome. 
What was there to make life worth living unless some 
Redeemer should come from God? 

Moreover, it was possible now to think of such a 
Saviour as a world-Saviour. In the earlier centuries 
men hardly knew that there was a world outside their 
own tribe and a few of their neighbors. There were 
no maps. Only a few could travel, and see for them- 
selves how great a world there really was — and how 
many nations there were — made up of men like them- 
selves. The common people of Asia scarcely knew that 
there was a Europe, and the enormous continent of 
Africa, except for Egypt, did not exist for them. As 
for what is now called the New World, North and 
South America, no one knew of its existence. 

Preparations for Christianity. — But the Romans 
built good roads all over the great countries which 
bordered on the Mediterranean Sea, and many were 
the travelers who went to and fro upon them. They 
established one government for all this Mediterranean 
world. One language came to be understood every- 
where — not Latin, the language of the Romans them- 
selves, but Greek. Beyond the boundaries of the 
empire there were, of course, vast territories. But it 
was possible now for even the common people to 
realize that their own village or city or tribe was only 
a small part of one great world. And for the first time 
in history there was a chance for some one to take the 
old Jewish hope of a better and happier Jewish people 



i 7 8 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

and change it into a world-hope of a better and happier 
human race, and to gather a few men and women to- 
gether and start them working for it. 

The Coming of Jesus 

In the wonderful providence of God there was born 
in a manger-cradle just at this moment in history the 
Baby who was destined to accomplish this miracle; to 
broaden out to their widest and noblest meanings these 
hopes which had been handed down from one genera- 
tion of Jews to another. The story of the life of Jesus 
will be given in detail in other courses in this series. 
Here, in a nutshell, is what Jesus did: he helped men 
to believe in a God who loved all men as his children, 
whether rich or poor, learned or ignorant, Jews or Gen- 
tiles or Samaritans, even the bad as well as the good; 
for if they were bad, they needed his love to help them 
to be good. Jesus not only taught this idea of God 
through his spoken words; he helped men, through his 
deeds, to understand it. He lived that way, as the Son 
of such a God. He healed the sick. He fed the 
hungry. He ate and drank with outcasts. He was 
everybody's friend. 

The inevitable conflict and cross. — Of course Jesus 
was not able to live that kind of life very long in our 
kind of world. Very soon he came into conflict with 
the various kinds of men who enjoyed special privileges 
of wealth or learning or honor and were not at all will- 
ing to share these things in a brotherly way; with the 
Pharisees, who were considered especially holy and did 
not want to be brothers to common men, the "people 
of the land"; with the rich who did not want to be 
brothers to the poor; with priests who did not want to 
be brothers to wounded men lying by the side of the 



JEWISH HOPES MADE GREATER 179 

Jericho road; with Romans who were afraid the Jews 
might think brotherhood meant liberty. So after three 
short years of preaching and healing Jesus was nailed 
to the cross, praying even as the nails were driven 
into his hands, "Father, forgive them, for they know 
not what they do." 

Suppose the Jews had believed in Jesus. — How 
different the outcome of their history would then have 
been! Instead of a bloody and hopeless revolt against 
the Romans, they might have found a way to live at 
peace with them, receiving from them a more just and 
humane government; Isaiah, centuries before, showed 
his people how to get along under the rule of Assyrians. 
Or, if the Romans had goaded the people to rebel, they 
might have fought and died gloriously, not merely for 
their own freedom but in the cause of all the suffering 
masses in all lands. Thus the whole course of history 
might have been changed. The four years' war which 
did break out in A. D. 66, about thirty-six years after 
Jesus' death, was not that kind of a war. In the course 
of these four years different factions among the Jews 
fought each other almost as fiercely as they fought the 
Romans. The Jews themselves were selfish in their 
hopes. They were not inspired and strengthened by 
Jesus' vision of brotherhood. In A. D. 70 the Romans 
captured the city of Jerusalem and burned the temple. 
It was never rebuilt. From that day to this the Jews 
have been a people without a native land. 

Carrying Out the Ideas of Jesus 

There was, however, after Jesus' death and resur- 
rection, a splendid company of disciples whose lives had 
been transformed by their acceptance of Jesus as 
Saviour and Lord, and who were eager to go on carry- 



180 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

ing out Jesus' plans. None of them thoroughly under- 
stood these plans. Indeed, we are only beginning to 
understand them to-day. But very soon, within a few 
years after Jesus' death, the wisest of the early apostles, 
such men as Peter, Barnabas, and Paul, came to see that 
to carry out Jesus' wishes there needed to be a universal 
church in which Jews and Gentiles, men of all races, 
would be included. Within a half century branches of 
this new world-church had been started in every im- 
portant city in the Roman empire. At first their 
meetings were held in synagogues of the Jews of the 
Dispersion; and it is a pity that all the Jews could not 
have perceived that these disciples of Jesus were carry- 
ing out the hopes of their own prophets, that this 
Christianity was simply Judaism fulfilled. But many, 
of course, wanted to keep their religion and their God 
to themselves as Jews. So there sprang up other 
buildings everywhere which came to be known as 
Christian churches rather than Jewish synagogues. 

Our task to-day. — In these modern times we are 
still trying to understand what Jesus wanted and to 
bring it to pass in reality. We are beginning to see 
that if all men are indeed sacred to our heavenly 
Father, then under the leadership of our everliving 
Christ, a fight is in store for us on behalf of all the 
millions of our brothers who are blinded by selfishness, 
haggard from want, embittered by injustice, stunted 
in soul and mind by ignorance, or tortured by all the 
agonies of war. If there is to be a better world for 
any of us, it must be a better world for all of us. It 
must be "everybody's world." 

Study Topics 
i. Look up in the Bible dictionary, for further light 



JEWISH HOPES MADE GREATER 181 

on the background of Jesus' life, Galilee, Nazareth, 
Capernaum. 

2. Read Matthew 4. 17. Explain why the mes- 
sage of Jesus, like that of John, awakened such a quick 
response among the people. 

3. What did Jesus think of the rule of Rome? Read 
Matthew 20. 25-27, and Luke 13. 31, 32. 

4. In contrast with the Zealots, what was Jesus' 
plan for winning freedom and happiness, instead of 
the oppression and misery of Roman rule? Read John 
18. 33-38. 



CHAPTER XXXII 
A THOUSAND YEARS OF A NATION'S QUEST 

In this course of study we have been tracing the 
progress of a great enterprise. A race of people set out 
in the days of Abraham to seek the best in life. Did 
they win or lose, succeed or fail? What did they 
achieve, during a thousand years of striving? 

Summary of Results 

Looking back over the whole period which we have 
studied, there are four short epochs which stand out in 
bright contrast to long stretches of darkness as times 
when the common people had a chance to enjoy some 
of the good things of life, or at least had reason to hope 
that they might some time gain them for themselves or 
their children. These were the times of David, of 
Josiah, of Nehemiah, and of Simon the Maccabee. 
These four men were all able and just leaders. They 
were all inspired, to a greater or less extent, by the 
ideals of Abraham, Moses, and the great reformer- 
prophets. 

The long centuries of failure. — The lives of all 
four of these men together, however, do not cover 
much more than a century. During the rest of the 
time, the common people were ground down under 
oppressors, either of their own race or foreign con- 
querors. Generation after generation of fathers and 
mothers patiently toiled and struggled and suffered, 
in the hope that they might climb just a little higher 
toward the sunlight of health and comfort and the 
182 



A THOUSAND YEARS' QUEST 183 

higher blessings of life. Most of them struggled in 
vain. It is true that a few of the more fortunate, 
in each generation, saw some little advance over earlier 
generations in the good things of civilization. Such 
men as Nicodemus and Zacchaeus, in the time of Jesus, 
lived in better houses, wore more comfortable clothes, 
and ate better food than did King David himself in 
an earlier, ruder age. But the common people of 
Jesus' day were not so well off as even in the days of 
Abraham. For as wandering shepherds they were free. 
Life might be a bitter struggle against wild beasts and 
drought and famine. But no haughty masters looked 
down on them with contempt, or robbed them of their 
last farthing in unjust taxation. Shall we say, then, 
that as a whole, the great enterprise was a failure? 

The Great Achievements — A True Religion 

No, the great quest was not a failure, even though 
it was so far from a complete success. Out of the long 
years of struggle and prayer had come a new religion, 
not, indeed, understood by many but partly grasped at 
least by some, and written down in books so that it 
could never be wholly lost. This was a religion of the 
brotherhood of man and of a •universal Father- God. 
The four eras of their history when the common people 
had been happy were eras when the principles of this 
religion had partly prevailed. And these eras still shine 
out for us as examples of what that kind of religion 
means in the life of a people. And the lives and 
words of the great prophets, and, greatest of all, the 
life of Jesus Christ, are a priceless legacy to us, who 
are still continuing the quest which Abraham began. 

The truth which has been revealed to us. — All 
men, everywhere, who are longing and toiling for a 



i«4 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

better chance for life and happiness and for knowledge 
and beauty and love for themselves and for their 
children, may now know that they are not without a 
mighty helper. There is One who revealed himself, in 
the history of the people of Israel and uniquely in 
Jesus Christ his Son, who still speaks in the name of 
all the hungry and thirsty and ragged and sick: 

"I was an hungered, and ye gave me no 
meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no 
drink: . . . Inasmuch as ye did it not 
unto one of these least, ye did it not unto 
me." 

Study Topics 

i. Of the four short eras of righteousness, in the 
history of the Hebrews, in which does it seem to you 
that the common people made the greatest gains? 

2. What were some of the improvements in civil- 
ization which rich or well-to-do people, in the later 
centuries of this history, enjoyed, as compared with the 
earlier centuries? Study Chapters I and II, VI, VII, 
and VIII, and XXII. 

3. Compare the earliest religion of the Hebrews 
with the religion of the prophets and Jesus. Mention 
four great discoveries in regard to the character of 
God. 



REVIEW AND TEST QUESTIONS 

i. Describe the daily life of the earliest ancestors 
of the Hebrews. 

2. What valuable characteristic of these people is 
reflected in the story of Joseph? 

3. What were some of the evils of Babylonian life? 

4. What kind of life did Abraham admire judging 
from the story of Lot? 

5. What was the name of the Pharaoh who op- 
pressed the Hebrews? 

6. Describe the slavery which the Hebrews were 
compelled to endure. What did they have to do? 

7. How did Moses succeed in delivering his coun- 
trymen? 

8. What was the effect of this deliverance on the 
life and religion of the Hebrews in after years? 

9. Why was it comparatively easy for the Hebrews 
to get a foothold in Canaan about B. C. 1200? 

10. To what extent was the settlement in Canaan 
peaceful and to what extent was it by conquest? 

n. What lessons in civilization did the Hebrews 
learn in Canaan? 

12. What moral dangers did they have to fight 
against there? 

13. Why were the Hebrews in the first years after 
the settlement so often beaten by their enemies? 

14. What was Deborah's most important contri- 
bution to the history of her people? 

15. Why did it seem necessary for the Hebrews to 
have a king? 

16. Why were some of the wisest of the Hebrews 
opposed to the idea of a king? 

185 



186 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

17. How did David make the lives of the common 
people under his rule more prosperous and happy? 

18. Why was Solomon unpopular? 

19. Was the disruption of the kingdom of Solomon 
a mistake, or was it a blessing? 

20. In what way did most of the kings who followed 
David make themselves a curse to their subjects? 

2i. Explain why the Rechabites, Elijah, and others 
hated Canaanitc civilization and wanted the people to 
go back to the old nomadic desert ways. 

22. Describe the burnt-offerings of ancient Hebrew 
religion. What was the difference between ordinary 
sacrifices and special "whole burnt-offerings"? 

23. Describe the life of the poor people of Israel 
in the time of Jeroboam II and the prophet Amos. 

24. How did Amos criticize the religion of burnt- 
offerings? 

25. What false ideas of God did Hosea combat? 

26. How did Hosea come to think of God as loving 
and merciful? 

27. How were superstitious ideas about God used 
by greedy priests and fortune-tellers in Micah's day to 
extort money from the people? 

28. What did Micah say were the essential things in 
religion? 

29. Why did the Jews in Isaiah's time seek for 
alliances with foreign countries? 

30. How were these alliances connected with the 
worship of foreign gods? 

31. What were some of the sayings of Isaiah in 
which he taught the lesson of faith in the one true 
God? 

32. What plan did Isaiah devise to educate disciples 
in his religious teachings? 



REVIEW AND TEST QUESTIONS 187 

33. What was the historical connection between the 
study circles of Isaiah and the law-book of Deuter- 
onomy? 

34. To what extent did the law-book of Deuter- 
onomy lead to the practice of the teachings of the 
prophets? 

35. How did this law compromise in the matter of 
burnt-offerings and other sacrifices? 

36. What did the prophet Jeremiah think of the 
law-book of Deuteronomy? Did he favor it or con- 
demn it? Explain. 

37. Describe the life of the exiles in Babylon. 

38. How did they keep alive their faith in Je- 
hovah? 

39. Where else besides Babylonia were large num- 
bers of Hebrew exiles to be found? 

40. With what hopes did the Jews comfort them- 
selves after the destruction of Jerusalem? 

41. In what two ways did Nehemiah help the Jews 
in Jerusalem to a happier life? 

42. Tell the story of the growing use of prayer and 
hymn books in the religious worship of the Jews. 

43. Why did many of the Jews become more nar- 
rowly prejudiced against foreigners after the destruction 
of Jerusalem? 

44. What influences tended to make some of the 
Jews in this period more broad-minded and friendly 
toward foreigners? 

45. Mention some writings from this period which 
helped the cause of the broader patriotism. 

46. What two kinds of special schools and teachers 
grew up among the Jews? 

47. Describe the daily scenes in the group of 
listeners around one of the old wise men. 



188 HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

48. What were some weaknesses and faults in the 
education of the scribes? 

49. What contributions did the Greeks bring to the 
civilization of the Jews in Canaan? 

50. Why were the Jews specially discontented 
under the rule of the Romans? 

51. In what four periods of their history were the 
Jews happiest? 

52. How did Jesus fulfill and broaden out the 
national hopes of the Jews? 

A SHORT LIST OF BOOKS THROWING LIGHT 
ON HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES 

Kent and Bailey: History of the Hebrew Common- 
wealth. 

George A. Barton: Archeology and the Bible. 

Charles Reynolds Brown: The Story Books of the 
Early Hebrews. 

Harold B. Hunting: The Story of Our Bible. 

Crosby: Geography of Bible Lands. 

Hastings' One Volume Bible Dictionary. 



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